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

How Massachusetts compares

Massachusetts ranks 28th of the 50 states for private warehousing and storage jobs, with 20,695 in 2025 across 248 establishments. A typical site employs 83.4 people.

The state sits in New England, a Census division. Its sites average 83.4 jobs against 81.5 across the country, and it holds 1.06% of the nation's warehousing establishments.

Where the warehousing jobs sit in Massachusetts

The counties with the most warehousing jobs, from the same BLS count: Essex (5,323), Worcester (4,052) and Bristol (3,283).

• Essex County5,323 jobs, 25.7% of the Massachusetts total.
• Worcester County4,052 jobs, 19.6% of the Massachusetts total.
• Bristol County3,283 jobs, 15.9% of the Massachusetts total.

What fills the yards in Massachusetts

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

• Food manufacturing29,036 private jobs in 2025, 1.6% of the US total. Say what the pallets carried. A load that touched edible oil is a different bin from a load that sat under sealed cartons. FDA does not approve pallet models, and recycled regrind is not made for food contact. In a pile from here, photograph the deck surface and any staining.
• Refrigerated warehousing3,299 private jobs in 2025, 4.5% of the US total. Say it came from cold storage. Brittle pallets grind fine. Wet pallets should be dry before they are stacked for a trailer. In a pile from here, photograph the cracks at corners and along the deck.

The rest of Massachusetts's pallet economy

Private jobs in 2025: food manufacturing 29,036, pharmaceutical manufacturing 10,179 and auto parts 199. Measured against the national share of employment, refrigerated warehousing is the most concentrated pallet-using industry here, at 1.9 times.

Cold storage in Massachusetts

USDA counted 54 million cubic feet of gross refrigerated warehouse space in Massachusetts on October 1, 2025, 23rd of 36 states. Cold stores wear pallets differently, and the refrigerated warehousing page says how.

What the size of the state means

Massachusetts 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.

Next to Massachusetts

The table sets the warehousing counts of Connecticut, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont against Massachusetts.

Loads from the rest of Massachusetts

Massachusetts has no metro page yet. A load from anywhere in the state goes the same way: ZIP, count, what the pallets carried, and we say which lane suits it.

Marked pallets in Massachusetts

No Massachusetts-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 Massachusetts load

For a Massachusetts pickup: ZIP, count, footprint. From food manufacturing, photograph the deck surface and any staining. From refrigerated warehousing, photograph the cracks at corners and along the deck.