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

How West Virginia compares

Across 100 establishments, warehousing and storage in West Virginia employed 3,631 people in 2025. That is 0.19% of the national total and puts the state 41st of 50, with an average of 36.3 jobs per site.

The state sits in the South Atlantic, a Census division. Its sites average 36.3 jobs against 81.5 across the country, and it holds 0.43% of the nation's warehousing establishments.

Where the warehousing jobs sit in West Virginia

The counties with the most warehousing jobs, from the same BLS count: Wood (684), Putnam (190) and Harrison (169).

• Wood County684 jobs, 18.8% of the West Virginia total.
• Putnam County190 jobs, 5.2% of the West Virginia total.
• Harrison County169 jobs, 4.7% of the West Virginia total.

What fills the yards in West Virginia

3 further industries are named in the market data for West Virginia. Each retires pallets for its own reasons.

• Chemical manufacturing7,595 private jobs in 2025, 0.9% of the US total. 48 x 48 pallets for four 55-gallon drums without overhang, 45 x 45 CP9 pallets for bags and boxes, often heavy-duty with sumps. Chemical resistance is why plastic is chosen. Wear, leaks and spills retire them. CP9 changes retire a whole footprint. In a pile from here, photograph any staining and the drum seats.
• Plastics product manufacturing4,044 private jobs in 2025, 0.7% of the US total. Plastics plants know resin. Say what you know. They are also the likeliest to want sorted regrind, so mention if you can take flake back. Retired stock after a product line ends. Some processors regrind their own scrap, and a pallet pile is one more feedstock. In a pile from here, photograph moulded codes and maker marks.
• Motor vehicle parts manufacturing3,925 private jobs in 2025, 0.8% of the US total. 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.

The rest of West Virginia's pallet economy

Private jobs in 2025: food manufacturing 3,636, pharmaceutical manufacturing 823 and auto parts 3,925. Measured against the national share of employment, chemical manufacturing is the most concentrated pallet-using industry here, at 2.0 times.

What the size of the state means

West Virginia is among the smaller warehouse states, so a pile here may be far from the next one. Say whether the load can be held, whether the pallets are reachable by truck, and how many there are.

Big metros elsewhere in the South Atlantic

Against West Virginia's 3,631 warehousing jobs, the largest metros in the same division are Atlanta, Georgia (49,050, 13.51 times), Miami, Florida (22,104, 6.09 times), Charlotte, North Carolina (18,437, 5.08 times), Jacksonville, Florida (15,384, 4.24 times), Orlando, Florida (13,928, 3.84 times) and Tampa, Florida (13,205, 3.64 times).

Next to West Virginia

The table sets the warehousing counts of Kentucky, Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia against West Virginia.

Loads from the rest of West Virginia

West Virginia has no metro page yet. A load from anywhere in the state goes the same way: ZIP, count, what the pallets carried, and we say which lane suits it.

Marked pallets in West Virginia

No West Virginia-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 West Virginia load

For a West Virginia pickup: ZIP, count, footprint. From chemical manufacturing, photograph any staining and the drum seats. From plastics product manufacturing, photograph moulded codes and maker marks.