Plastic pallet recycling in Maryland: what the yards hold and where it goes

How Maryland compares

Counting 29,966 private jobs in warehousing and storage at 245 sites, Maryland stands 20th among the states, 1.58% of the country. The mean site holds 122.3 workers.

The state sits in the South Atlantic, a Census division. Its sites average 122.3 jobs against 81.5 across the country, and it holds 1.05% of the nation's warehousing establishments.

Where the warehousing jobs sit in Maryland

The counties with the most warehousing jobs, from the same BLS count: Harford (3,435), Prince George's (2,664) and Washington (1,842).

• Harford County3,435 jobs, 11.5% of the Maryland total.
• Prince George's County2,664 jobs, 8.9% of the Maryland total.
• Washington County1,842 jobs, 6.1% of the Maryland total.

What fills the yards in Maryland

2 further industries are named in the market data for Maryland. Each retires pallets for its own reasons.

• Warehousing and storage29,966 private jobs in 2025, 1.6% of the US total. Forklift tines split decks and chip corners. A racking change retires one style at once. Strays arrive on inbound trailers from shippers who use pooled pallets, and sit in the yard until someone asks whose they are. General-purpose 48 x 40 pallets, nestables for empty storage and rackables on beams. Warehouses hold the widest mix of styles of any industry here, so mixed resin and mixed colour piles are normal. In a pile from here, photograph the yard stacks, from the dock side.
• Pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing9,019 private jobs in 2025, 2.6% of the US total. Validation changes, cleanroom upgrades and audits retire pallets in lots. Pallets are often kept sound and retired for compliance, not damage. A sound, clean, documented pallet is worth more as a pallet. Say if paperwork exists. Say if any pallet touched product or chemicals. In a pile from here, photograph the deck surface and any batch plates.

The rest of Maryland's pallet economy

Private jobs in 2025: food manufacturing 19,600, pharmaceutical manufacturing 9,019, motor vehicle assembly 218 and auto parts 247. Measured against the national share of employment, pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing is the most concentrated pallet-using industry here, at 1.5 times.

What the size of the state means

Maryland is a mid-table warehouse state. The jobs sit in a few places, and a pile outside them is the exception. Give the ZIP early, because distance to the nearest cluster decides how a load is placed.

Big metros elsewhere in the South Atlantic

Against Maryland's 29,966 warehousing jobs, the largest metros in the same division are Atlanta, Georgia (49,050, 1.64 times), Miami, Florida (22,104, 0.74 times), Charlotte, North Carolina (18,437, 0.62 times), Jacksonville, Florida (15,384, 0.51 times), Orlando, Florida (13,928, 0.46 times) and Tampa, Florida (13,205, 0.44 times).

Next to Maryland

The table sets the warehousing counts of Delaware, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia against Maryland.

Metros we cover in Maryland

Baltimore and Hagerstown each have a page with ZIPs, counties and a corridor note.

• Baltimore-Columbia-Towson6,377 warehousing jobs, 43rd of 60 metros. ZIPs 20794, 21224, 21226.
• Hagerstown-Martinsburg1,842 warehousing jobs, 55th of 60 metros. ZIPs 21740.

Marked pallets in Maryland

No Maryland-specific rule on stray proprietary pallets appears in our sources. Check every pallet for marks first; California's AB 1760 is the one rule we cite.

Describing a Maryland load

For a Maryland pickup: ZIP, count, footprint. From warehousing and storage, photograph the yard stacks, from the dock side. From pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing, photograph the deck surface and any batch plates.