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

How Texas compares

Across 2,174 establishments, warehousing and storage in Texas employed 175,579 people in 2025. That is 9.23% of the national total and puts the state 2nd of 50, with an average of 80.8 jobs per site.

The state sits in the West South Central states, a Census division. Its sites average 80.8 jobs against 81.5 across the country, and it holds 9.31% of the nation's warehousing establishments.

Where the warehousing jobs sit in Texas

The counties with the most warehousing jobs, from the same BLS count: Dallas (44,657), Harris (23,802) and Tarrant (19,462).

• Dallas County44,657 jobs, 25.4% of the Texas total.
• Harris County23,802 jobs, 13.6% of the Texas total.
• Tarrant County19,462 jobs, 11.1% of the Texas total.

What fills the yards in Texas

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

• Warehousing and storage175,579 private jobs in 2025, 9.2% 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. In a pile from here, photograph the yard stacks, from the dock side.
• Food manufacturing112,088 private jobs in 2025, 6.3% 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. 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.

The rest of Texas's pallet economy

Private jobs in 2025: food manufacturing 112,088, pharmaceutical manufacturing 15,366, motor vehicle assembly 28,069 and auto parts 23,517. Measured against the national share of employment, warehousing and storage is the most concentrated pallet-using industry here, at 1.0 times.

Cold storage in Texas

USDA counted 254 million cubic feet of gross refrigerated warehouse space in Texas on October 1, 2025, 6th of 36 states. Cold stores wear pallets differently, and the refrigerated warehousing page says how.

What the size of the state means

Texas is one of the ten biggest warehouse states, so a load here usually comes from a cluster and not an outlier. Expect several footprints and a mix of owned and pooled pallets, and describe each stack as its own line.

Big metros elsewhere in the West South Central states

Against Texas's 175,579 warehousing jobs, the largest metros in the same division are Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (8,336, 0.05 times), Northwest Arkansas, Arkansas (3,065, 0.02 times) and New Orleans, Louisiana (2,090, 0.01 times).

Next to Texas

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

Metros we cover in Texas

Dallas, Houston, Laredo, San Antonio and Austin each have a page with ZIPs, counties and a corridor note.

• Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington82,593 warehousing jobs, 2nd of 60 metros. ZIPs 75050, 76177, 75006.
• Houston-The Woodlands33,785 warehousing jobs, 10th of 60 metros. ZIPs 77571, 77032, 77523.
• Laredo2,014 warehousing jobs, 54th of 60 metros. ZIPs 78045, 78041, 78043.
• San Antonio-New Braunfels16,751 warehousing jobs, 26th of 60 metros. ZIPs 78218, 78219, 78154.
• Austin-Round Rock5,657 warehousing jobs, 44th of 60 metros. ZIPs 78744, 78660, 78758.

Marked pallets in Texas

No Texas-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 Texas load

For a Texas pickup: ZIP, count, footprint. From warehousing and storage, photograph the yard stacks, from the dock side. From food manufacturing, photograph the deck surface and any staining.