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

How Missouri compares

Missouri ranks 22nd of the 50 states for private warehousing and storage jobs, with 26,726 in 2025 across 523 establishments. A typical site employs 51.1 people.

The state sits in the West North Central states, a Census division. Its sites average 51.1 jobs against 81.5 across the country, and it holds 2.24% of the nation's warehousing establishments.

Counties in Missouri

The BLS county figures for Missouri are not broken out here, so the page works from the state total of 26,726 jobs. Give a ZIP and we place the load.

What fills the yards in Missouri

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

• Chemical manufacturing22,970 private jobs in 2025, 2.6% of the US total. 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.
• Meat and poultry processing16,925 private jobs in 2025, 3.0% of the US total. Washdown, grease and thermal cycling. Pallets are retired when the surface cannot be sanitised. Plant remodels retire whole colour-coded sets. Washdown-grade 48 x 40 pallets, often HDPE, in cold and wet rooms. Colour coding separates raw from cooked zones. In a pile from here, photograph the surface condition, close up.
• Motor vehicle manufacturing13,274 private jobs in 2025, 4.6% of the US total. 48 x 45 pallets matched to bulk containers for parts, heavy duty, closed loop with known sites. Closed-loop pallets often carry plant or supplier marks. Check the marks. These are usually company-owned, so ownership is known, but it must be confirmed. In a pile from here, photograph the plant or supplier markings.
• Dairy product manufacturing6,107 private jobs in 2025, 3.6% of the US total. Cold-room cycles and wash chemistry. Dairy residue and milk fats cling to textured decks. Pallets are replaced on a schedule or when a crack harbours residue. Say if pallets were washed with strong chemicals. Say if any are coloured to mark zones. Dairies often retire sets of one colour. In a pile from here, photograph the colour code and any cracks.
• Fruit and vegetable preserving4,877 private jobs in 2025, 2.8% of the US total. Beverage-style 56 x 44 and 48 x 40 pallets for cans and jars, plus 43 x 43 bulk bag pallets for additives and ingredients. In a pile from here, photograph a stack from the side, and a stained deck.

The rest of Missouri's pallet economy

Private jobs in 2025: food manufacturing 45,268, pharmaceutical manufacturing 6,745, motor vehicle assembly 13,274 and auto parts 8,376. Measured against the national share of employment, motor vehicle manufacturing is the most concentrated pallet-using industry here, at 2.5 times.

Cold storage in Missouri

USDA counted 104 million cubic feet of gross refrigerated warehouse space in Missouri on October 1, 2025, 12th of 36 states. Cold stores wear pallets differently, and the refrigerated warehousing page says how.

What the size of the state means

Missouri 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 West North Central states

Against Missouri's 26,726 warehousing jobs, the largest metros in the same division are Minneapolis, Minnesota (6,599, 0.25 times), Omaha, Nebraska (5,157, 0.19 times), Des Moines, Iowa (4,393, 0.16 times) and Sioux Falls, South Dakota (2,930, 0.11 times).

Next to Missouri

The table sets the warehousing counts of Arkansas, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Tennessee against Missouri.

Metros we cover in Missouri

Kansas City and St. Louis each have a page with ZIPs, counties and a corridor note.

• Kansas City20,676 warehousing jobs, 18th of 60 metros. ZIPs 64161, 64116, 64120.
• St. Louis16,879 warehousing jobs, 25th of 60 metros. ZIPs 63042, 62025, 62040.

Marked pallets in Missouri

Missouri has no rule we can cite on stray proprietary pallets. Until an owner is ruled out by the marks, nothing in a Missouri load is ground.

Describing a Missouri load

Three facts first for Missouri: ZIP, count, footprint. Pallets from meat and poultry processing want the surface condition, close up photographed; chemical manufacturing pallets want any staining and the drum seats photographed.