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

How Washington compares

Across 473 establishments, warehousing and storage in Washington employed 36,691 people in 2025. That is 1.93% of the national total and puts the state 18th of 50, with an average of 77.6 jobs per site.

The state sits in the Pacific states, a Census division. Its sites average 77.6 jobs against 81.5 across the country, and it holds 2.03% of the nation's warehousing establishments.

Where the warehousing jobs sit in Washington

The counties with the most warehousing jobs, from the same BLS count: Pierce (10,323), King (9,341) and Spokane (5,387).

• Pierce County10,323 jobs, 28.1% of the Washington total.
• King County9,341 jobs, 25.5% of the Washington total.
• Spokane County5,387 jobs, 14.7% of the Washington total.

What fills the yards in Washington

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

• Grocery and related product wholesale23,876 private jobs in 2025, 2.9% of the US total. High volume and many inbound shippers. Strays collect at the back of the yard. Sets retire when a retailer changes its pallet standard. In a pile from here, photograph every mark, logo and RFID bump.
• Fruit and vegetable preserving10,988 private jobs in 2025, 6.3% of the US total. A pack season ends and the yard is cleared. Sugar and acid residue stain decks. A customer standard change retires a footprint. Beverage-style 56 x 44 and 48 x 40 pallets for cans and jars, plus 43 x 43 bulk bag pallets for additives and ingredients. In a pile from here, photograph a stack from the side, and a stained deck.

The rest of Washington's pallet economy

Private jobs in 2025: food manufacturing 39,687, pharmaceutical manufacturing 4,224 and auto parts 1,900. Measured against the national share of employment, fruit and vegetable preserving is the most concentrated pallet-using industry here, at 2.8 times.

Cold storage in Washington

USDA counted 301 million cubic feet of gross refrigerated warehouse space in Washington on October 1, 2025, 3rd of 36 states. Cold stores wear pallets differently, and the refrigerated warehousing page says how.

What the size of the state means

Washington 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 Pacific states

Against Washington's 36,691 warehousing jobs, the largest metros in the same division are Inland Empire, California (118,368, 3.23 times), Stockton, California (28,518, 0.78 times), Los Angeles, California (27,225, 0.74 times), San Francisco, California (9,473, 0.26 times), Portland, Oregon (8,157, 0.22 times) and Fresno, California (5,006, 0.14 times).

Next to Washington

The table sets the warehousing counts of Idaho and Oregon against Washington.

Metros we cover in Washington

Seattle and Yakima each have a page with ZIPs, counties and a corridor note.

• Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue23,062 warehousing jobs, 16th of 60 metros. ZIPs 98032, 98390, 98001.
• Yakima1,309 warehousing jobs, 57th of 60 metros. ZIPs 98930, 98903.

Marked pallets in Washington

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

Describing a Washington load

Three facts first for Washington: ZIP, count, footprint. Pallets from fruit and vegetable preserving want a stack from the side, and a stained deck photographed; grocery and related product wholesale pallets want every mark, logo and RFID bump photographed.