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

Knoxville in the numbers

The Knoxville metro counts 1,751 private jobs in warehousing and storage for 2025. That is 0.09% of the US industry and 0.5% of private jobs in the metro, 56th of 60 here. Only counties with disclosed figures are counted, so the true number is a little higher.

It spans 9 counties: Anderson, Blount, Campbell, Grainger, Knox and Loudon and others. Warehousing is 0.5% of private jobs there, and the metro holds 3.3% of Tennessee's 53,427 warehousing jobs. 5 ZIP codes stand out for sites, led by 37921 (Knoxville, 8).

County by county

The largest warehousing counties in the metro: Knox (1,454), Loudon (257) and Roane (40).

• Knox County1,454 jobs, 83.0% of the metro's disclosed total.
• Loudon County257 jobs, 14.7% of the metro's disclosed total.
• Roane County40 jobs, 2.3% of the metro's disclosed total.

The industries behind the loads

2 industries are named for the Knoxville metro. The most concentrated is motor vehicle parts manufacturing, at 2.1 times the national share of employment.

• Motor vehicle parts manufacturing2,979 jobs in 2025, 0.57% 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. Uniform stock is easy to describe: one footprint, one colour, one maker. Say if oil or metal swarf was on the decks. In a pile from here, photograph the stack and a runner close up.
• Food manufacturing2,813 jobs in 2025, 0.16% of the US total. Say what the pallets carried. A load that touched edible oil is a different bin from a load that sat under sealed cartons. FDA does not approve pallet models, and recycled regrind is not made for food contact. In a pile from here, photograph the deck surface and any staining.

On the freight lanes: I-81, I-75 and I-40

Knoxville sits on I-81, which runs from I-40 at Dandridge, Tennessee, to the Canadian border at Wellesley Island, New York. The metros we track on it hold 39,746 private warehousing jobs, 2.1% of the US total (disclosed counties only). Also on it: Harrisburg (17,241), Scranton (18,912) and Hagerstown (1,842).

Knoxville 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), Cincinnati (19,940), Miami (22,104), Tampa (13,205) and Detroit (30,083).

Knoxville sits on I-40, which runs from I-40 is a transcontinental Interstate 2,556 miles long through California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee and North Carolina, the third-longest in the country. The metros we track on it hold 57,377 private warehousing jobs, 3.0% of the US total (disclosed counties only). Also on it: Memphis (27,742), Nashville (19,548) and Oklahoma City (8,336).

Metros of a similar size

By warehousing jobs the nearest metros are Hagerstown (1,842), Laredo (2,014) and New Orleans (2,090).

Elsewhere in Tennessee

Memphis (27,742 jobs, 15.84 times Knoxville, busiest ZIP 38118) and Nashville (19,548 jobs, 11.16 times Knoxville, busiest ZIP 37086) are the other metros we cover in Tennessee, which has 53,427 warehousing jobs in all.

What the size of the market means

A smaller market, with fewer sites within reach of each other. For a pile in Knoxville, say whether it can be held and for how long, and whether the pallets are stacked where a truck can reach them.

What a Knoxville load looks like

Motor vehicle parts manufacturing comes first here, at 2,979 jobs. Photograph the stack and a runner close up and, for food manufacturing, the deck surface and any staining. Say the ZIP, the count and the footprint. Marks are checked before anything is ground.