Plastic pallet recycling in Minneapolis-St. Paul: ZIPs, industries and the loads they leave behind

Minneapolis-St. Paul in the numbers

With 6,599 private warehousing and storage jobs in 2025, Minneapolis-St. Paul stands 41st of 60 metros in our data, 0.35% of the country. Only counties with disclosed figures are counted, so the true number is a little higher.

It spans 15 counties: Anoka, Carver, Chisago, Dakota, Hennepin and Isanti and others. Warehousing is 0.4% of private jobs there, and the metro holds 36.8% of Minnesota's 17,921 warehousing jobs. 5 ZIP codes stand out for sites, led by 55121 (Saint Paul, 19).

County by county

The largest warehousing counties in the metro: Hennepin (3,616), Anoka (1,119) and Washington (779).

• Hennepin County3,616 jobs, 54.8% of the metro's disclosed total.
• Anoka County1,119 jobs, 17.0% of the metro's disclosed total.
• Washington County779 jobs, 11.8% of the metro's disclosed total.

The industries behind the loads

2 industries are named for the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro. The most concentrated is food manufacturing, at 0.6 times the national share of employment.

• Food manufacturing14,543 jobs in 2025, 0.82% 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.
• Chemical manufacturing9,984 jobs in 2025, 1.12% of the US total. Say what the pallets carried. A residue of an unknown chemical is a stop. A drum pallet that held a benign material is a normal stream. Chemical resistance is why plastic is chosen. Wear, leaks and spills retire them. CP9 changes retire a whole footprint. In a pile from here, photograph any staining and the drum seats.

On the freight lanes: I-35 and I-94

Minneapolis-St. Paul sits on I-35, which runs from Laredo, Texas, at the Mexican border to Duluth, Minnesota, splitting into I-35E and I-35W at Dallas-Fort Worth and again at the Twin Cities. The metros we track on it hold 147,019 private warehousing jobs, 7.7% of the US total (disclosed counties only). Also on it: Dallas (82,593), Laredo (2,014), San Antonio (16,751), Austin (5,657), Kansas City (20,676), Oklahoma City (8,336) and Des Moines (4,393).

Minneapolis-St. Paul sits on I-94, which runs from east of Billings, Montana, to Port Huron, Michigan, at the Blue Water Bridge to Canada, and is the only east-west Interstate with a direct Canadian connection. The metros we track on it hold 104,530 private warehousing jobs, 5.5% of the US total (disclosed counties only). Also on it: Chicago (59,586), Detroit (30,083) and Milwaukee (8,262).

Metros of a similar size

By warehousing jobs the nearest metros are Salt Lake City (6,623), Savannah (6,384) and Baltimore (6,377).

What the size of the market means

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

What a Minneapolis-St. Paul load looks like

The biggest named industry is food manufacturing, with 14,543 jobs. Photograph the deck surface and any staining and, for chemical manufacturing, any staining and the drum seats. Say the ZIP, the count and the footprint. Marked pallets get the ownership check first.