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

How Tennessee compares

Tennessee ranks 12th of the 50 states for private warehousing and storage jobs, with 53,427 in 2025 across 642 establishments. A typical site employs 83.2 people.

The state sits in the East South Central states, a Census division. Its sites average 83.2 jobs against 81.5 across the country, and it holds 2.75% of the nation's warehousing establishments.

Where the warehousing jobs sit in Tennessee

The counties with the most warehousing jobs, from the same BLS count: Shelby (11,727), Wilson (9,641) and Rutherford (5,778).

• Shelby County11,727 jobs, 21.9% of the Tennessee total.
• Wilson County9,641 jobs, 18.0% of the Tennessee total.
• Rutherford County5,778 jobs, 10.8% of the Tennessee total.

What fills the yards in Tennessee

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

• Warehousing and storage53,427 private jobs in 2025, 2.8% of the US total. General-purpose 48 x 40 pallets, nestables for empty storage and rackables on beams. Warehouses hold the widest mix of styles of any industry here, so mixed resin and mixed colour piles are normal. 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.
• Motor vehicle parts manufacturing38,791 private jobs in 2025, 7.4% of the US total. 48 x 45 pallets matching heavy auto parts bulk containers, and 48 x 40 for general parts flows. Often heavy-duty HDPE with high static ratings. 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.
• Chemical manufacturing27,214 private jobs in 2025, 3.0% of the US total. Chemical resistance is why plastic is chosen. Wear, leaks and spills retire them. CP9 changes retire a whole footprint. 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. In a pile from here, photograph any staining and the drum seats.
• Motor vehicle manufacturing19,453 private jobs in 2025, 6.7% of the US total. 48 x 45 pallets matched to bulk containers for parts, heavy duty, closed loop with known sites. In a pile from here, photograph the plant or supplier markings.

The rest of Tennessee's pallet economy

Private jobs in 2025: food manufacturing 40,320, pharmaceutical manufacturing 3,015, motor vehicle assembly 19,453 and auto parts 38,791. Measured against the national share of employment, motor vehicle parts manufacturing is the most concentrated pallet-using industry here, at 3.5 times.

Cold storage in Tennessee

USDA counted 68 million cubic feet of gross refrigerated warehouse space in Tennessee on October 1, 2025, 19th of 36 states. Cold stores wear pallets differently, and the refrigerated warehousing page says how.

What the size of the state means

Tennessee 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 East South Central states

Against Tennessee's 53,427 warehousing jobs, the largest metros in the same division are Louisville/Jefferson County, Kentucky (14,533, 0.27 times).

Next to Tennessee

The table sets the warehousing counts of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina and Virginia against Tennessee.

Metros we cover in Tennessee

Memphis, Nashville and Knoxville each have a page with ZIPs, counties and a corridor note.

• Memphis27,742 warehousing jobs, 14th of 60 metros. ZIPs 38118, 38654, 38141.
• Nashville-Davidson-Murfreesboro-Franklin19,548 warehousing jobs, 20th of 60 metros. ZIPs 37086, 37090, 37122.
• Knoxville1,751 warehousing jobs, 56th of 60 metros. ZIPs 37921, 37917, 37922.

Marked pallets in Tennessee

No Tennessee-specific rule on stray proprietary pallets appears in our sources. Check every pallet for marks first; California's AB 1760 is the one rule we cite.

Describing a Tennessee load

For a Tennessee pickup: ZIP, count, footprint. From warehousing and storage, photograph the yard stacks, from the dock side. From motor vehicle parts manufacturing, photograph the stack and a runner close up.