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

How Oklahoma compares

Oklahoma ranks 30th of the 50 states for private warehousing and storage jobs, with 19,669 in 2025 across 186 establishments. A typical site employs 105.7 people.

The state sits in the West South Central states, a Census division. Its sites average 105.7 jobs against 81.5 across the country, and it holds 0.80% of the nation's warehousing establishments.

Where the warehousing jobs sit in Oklahoma

The counties with the most warehousing jobs, from the same BLS count: Oklahoma (8,307), Tulsa (4,614) and Garfield (150).

• Oklahoma County8,307 jobs, 42.2% of the Oklahoma total.
• Tulsa County4,614 jobs, 23.5% of the Oklahoma total.
• Garfield County150 jobs, 0.8% of the Oklahoma total.

What fills the yards in Oklahoma

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

• Food manufacturing20,047 private jobs in 2025, 1.1% 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. In a pile from here, photograph the deck surface and any staining.
• Meat and poultry processing11,968 private jobs in 2025, 2.2% of the US total. 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 Oklahoma's pallet economy

Private jobs in 2025: food manufacturing 20,047, pharmaceutical manufacturing 846 and auto parts 1,793. Measured against the national share of employment, meat and poultry processing is the most concentrated pallet-using industry here, at 2.1 times.

Cold storage in Oklahoma

USDA counted 10 million cubic feet of gross refrigerated warehouse space in Oklahoma on October 1, 2025, 32nd of 36 states. Cold stores wear pallets differently, and the refrigerated warehousing page says how.

What the size of the state means

Oklahoma 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 South Central states

Against Oklahoma's 19,669 warehousing jobs, the largest metros in the same division are Dallas, Texas (82,593, 4.20 times), Houston, Texas (33,785, 1.72 times), San Antonio, Texas (16,751, 0.85 times), Austin, Texas (5,657, 0.29 times), Northwest Arkansas, Arkansas (3,065, 0.16 times) and New Orleans, Louisiana (2,090, 0.11 times).

Next to Oklahoma

The table sets the warehousing counts of Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, New Mexico and Texas against Oklahoma.

Metros we cover in Oklahoma

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

• Oklahoma City8,336 warehousing jobs, 36th of 60 metros. ZIPs 73179, 73127, 73108.

Marked pallets in Oklahoma

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

Describing a Oklahoma load

Three facts first for Oklahoma: 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.