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

Cincinnati in the numbers

Cincinnati had 19,940 private warehousing and storage jobs in 2025, 1.05% of the national total and 19th of the 60 metros we cover. Only counties with disclosed figures are counted, so the true number is a little higher.

It spans 15 counties: Dearborn, Franklin, Ohio, Boone, Bracken and Campbell and others. Warehousing is 2.0% of private jobs there, and the metro holds 20.3% of Ohio's 98,354 warehousing jobs. 5 ZIP codes stand out for sites, led by 41048 (Hebron, 28).

County by county

The largest warehousing counties in the metro: Boone (9,121), Butler (4,169) and Kenton (2,462).

• Boone County9,121 jobs, 45.7% of the metro's disclosed total.
• Butler County4,169 jobs, 20.9% of the metro's disclosed total.
• Kenton County2,462 jobs, 12.3% of the metro's disclosed total.

The industries behind the loads

4 industries are named for the Cincinnati metro. The most concentrated is motor vehicle parts manufacturing, at 2.3 times the national share of employment.

• Warehousing and storage19,940 jobs in 2025, 1.05% of the US total. Forklift tines split decks and chip corners. A racking change retires one style at once. Strays arrive on inbound trailers from shippers who use pooled pallets, and sit in the yard until someone asks whose they are. In a pile from here, photograph the yard stacks, from the dock side.
• Chemical manufacturing13,339 jobs in 2025, 1.49% of the US total. 48 x 48 pallets for four 55-gallon drums without overhang, 45 x 45 CP9 pallets for bags and boxes, often heavy-duty with sumps. In a pile from here, photograph any staining and the drum seats.
• Motor vehicle parts manufacturing8,880 jobs in 2025, 1.70% of the US total. End of a vehicle programme, change of a customer container, wear on heavy loads. A supplier that served one assembler can hold thousands of one footprint. In a pile from here, photograph the stack and a runner close up.
• Beverage manufacturing3,466 jobs in 2025, 1.09% of the US total. Beverage pallets at 56 x 44 and 48 x 40, stackable for heavy static loads. PHS lists a 56 x 44 beverage pallet at 30,000 lb static. Heavy glass and can loads crush runners over time. Route changes and returnable programmes retire whole sets. Weather in outdoor yards ages the surface. In a pile from here, photograph the runners and the model plate.

On the freight lanes: I-75

Cincinnati sits on I-75, which runs from I-75 is 1,786 miles long, from the Hialeah-Miami Lakes border in Florida to Sault Ste. The metros we track on it hold 136,133 private warehousing jobs, 7.2% of the US total (disclosed counties only). Also on it: Atlanta (49,050), Knoxville (1,751), Miami (22,104), Tampa (13,205) and Detroit (30,083).

Metros of a similar size

By warehousing jobs the nearest metros are Nashville (19,548), Kansas City (20,676) and Lehigh Valley (19,122).

Elsewhere in Ohio

Columbus (34,200 jobs, 1.72 times Cincinnati, busiest ZIP 43137) and Cleveland (13,652 jobs, 0.68 times Cincinnati, busiest ZIP 44139) are the other metros we cover in Ohio, which has 98,354 warehousing jobs in all.

What the size of the market means

A mid-sized warehouse market. Loads around Cincinnati tend to come from a handful of big sites and a long tail of small ones, and a full trailer from one site is a different job from three part-loads from three. Say which yours is.

What a Cincinnati load looks like

The biggest named industry is warehousing and storage, with 19,940 jobs. Photograph the yard stacks, from the dock side 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.