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

How Nebraska compares

Counting 8,246 private jobs in warehousing and storage at 156 sites, Nebraska stands 37th among the states, 0.43% of the country. The mean site holds 52.9 workers.

The state sits in the West North Central states, a Census division. Its sites average 52.9 jobs against 81.5 across the country, and it holds 0.67% of the nation's warehousing establishments.

Where the warehousing jobs sit in Nebraska

The counties with the most warehousing jobs, from the same BLS count: Sarpy (3,613), Douglas (1,252) and Lancaster (1,080).

• Sarpy County3,613 jobs, 43.8% of the Nebraska total.
• Douglas County1,252 jobs, 15.2% of the Nebraska total.
• Lancaster County1,080 jobs, 13.1% of the Nebraska total.

What fills the yards in Nebraska

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

• Food manufacturing41,939 private jobs in 2025, 2.4% 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.
• Meat and poultry processing31,833 private jobs in 2025, 5.7% of the US total. Washdown-grade 48 x 40 pallets, often HDPE, in cold and wet rooms. Colour coding separates raw from cooked zones. Grease and organic residue are contamination. Say how the pallets were cleaned. A degreased, dry load is a normal stream. A greasy one needs a conversation. In a pile from here, photograph the surface condition, close up.

The rest of Nebraska's pallet economy

Private jobs in 2025: food manufacturing 41,939, pharmaceutical manufacturing 2,616 and auto parts 3,822. Measured against the national share of employment, meat and poultry processing is the most concentrated pallet-using industry here, at 8.9 times.

Cold storage in Nebraska

USDA counted 49 million cubic feet of gross refrigerated warehouse space in Nebraska on October 1, 2025, 24th of 36 states. Cold stores wear pallets differently, and the refrigerated warehousing page says how.

What the size of the state means

Nebraska is among the smaller warehouse states, so a pile here may be far from the next one. Say whether the load can be held, whether the pallets are reachable by truck, and how many there are.

Big metros elsewhere in the West North Central states

Against Nebraska's 8,246 warehousing jobs, the largest metros in the same division are Kansas City, Missouri (20,676, 2.51 times), St. Louis, Missouri (16,879, 2.05 times), Minneapolis, Minnesota (6,599, 0.80 times), Des Moines, Iowa (4,393, 0.53 times) and Sioux Falls, South Dakota (2,930, 0.36 times).

Next to Nebraska

The table sets the warehousing counts of Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, South Dakota and Wyoming against Nebraska.

Metros we cover in Nebraska

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

• Omaha5,157 warehousing jobs, 45th of 60 metros. ZIPs 68138, 68137, 68128.

Marked pallets in Nebraska

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

Describing a Nebraska load

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