Plastic pallet recycling in Baltimore: ZIPs, industries and the loads they leave behind

Baltimore in the numbers

With 6,377 private warehousing and storage jobs in 2025, Baltimore stands 43rd of 60 metros in our data, 0.34% of the country. Only counties with disclosed figures are counted, so the true number is a little higher.

It spans 7 counties: Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Carroll, Harford, Howard and Queen Anne's and others. Warehousing is 0.6% of private jobs there, and the metro holds 21.3% of Maryland's 29,966 warehousing jobs. 5 ZIP codes stand out for sites, led by 20794 (Jessup, 18).

County by county

The largest warehousing counties in the metro: Harford (3,435), Howard (1,651) and Anne Arundel (1,291).

• Harford County3,435 jobs, 53.9% of the metro's disclosed total.
• Howard County1,651 jobs, 25.9% of the metro's disclosed total.
• Anne Arundel County1,291 jobs, 20.2% of the metro's disclosed total.

The industries behind the loads

2 industries are named for the Baltimore metro. The most concentrated is grocery and related product wholesale, at 1.4 times the national share of employment.

• Food manufacturing11,590 jobs in 2025, 0.65% of the US total. Hygienic 48 x 40 and 40 x 48 pallets in HDPE or PP, often with closed decks and colour-coding by zone. Some are listed as food safe but not approved for direct food contact. Sanitation audits remove cracked or stained pallets. A change of packaging line retires a colour-coded set. Pallets that held ingredients with strong odours or oils are culled early. In a pile from here, photograph the deck surface and any staining.
• Grocery and related product wholesale10,051 jobs in 2025, 1.21% of the US total. Sort marked from unmarked first. Count the unmarked by style. This industry is where the ownership check matters most. High volume and many inbound shippers. Strays collect at the back of the yard. Sets retire when a retailer changes its pallet standard. In a pile from here, photograph every mark, logo and RFID bump.

On the freight lanes: I-95 and I-70

Baltimore sits on I-95, which runs from I-95 is the main north-south Interstate on the East Coast, running from Miami, Florida, to the Houlton-Woodstock border crossing between Maine and New Brunswick. The metros we track on it hold 127,866 private warehousing jobs, 6.7% of the US total (disclosed counties only). Also on it: Savannah (6,384), Northern New Jersey (39,367), Philadelphia (38,250), Miami (22,104) and Jacksonville (15,384).

Baltimore sits on I-70, which runs from I-15 near Cove Fort, Utah, to I-695 near Baltimore, Maryland. The metros we track on it hold 135,057 private warehousing jobs, 7.1% of the US total (disclosed counties only). Also on it: Columbus (34,200), Indianapolis (41,067), Kansas City (20,676), St. Louis (16,879) and Denver (15,858).

Metros of a similar size

By warehousing jobs the nearest metros are Savannah (6,384), Minneapolis (6,599) and Salt Lake City (6,623).

Elsewhere in Maryland

Hagerstown (1,842 jobs, 0.29 times Baltimore, busiest ZIP 21740) is the other metro we cover in Maryland, which has 29,966 warehousing jobs in all.

What the size of the market means

A smaller market, with fewer sites within reach of each other. For a pile in Baltimore, say whether it can be held and for how long, and whether the pallets are stacked where a truck can reach them.

What a Baltimore load looks like

The biggest named industry is food manufacturing, with 11,590 jobs. Photograph the deck surface and any staining and, for grocery and related product wholesale, every mark, logo and RFID bump. Say the ZIP, the count and the footprint. Marked pallets get the ownership check first.