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

How Wisconsin compares

Wisconsin ranks 19th of the 50 states for private warehousing and storage jobs, with 33,054 in 2025 across 428 establishments. A typical site employs 77.2 people.

The state sits in the East North Central states, a Census division. Its sites average 77.2 jobs against 81.5 across the country, and it holds 1.83% of the nation's warehousing establishments.

Where the warehousing jobs sit in Wisconsin

The counties with the most warehousing jobs, from the same BLS count: Kenosha (8,358), Milwaukee (4,244) and Waukesha (3,634).

• Kenosha County8,358 jobs, 25.3% of the Wisconsin total.
• Milwaukee County4,244 jobs, 12.8% of the Wisconsin total.
• Waukesha County3,634 jobs, 11.0% of the Wisconsin total.

What fills the yards in Wisconsin

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

• Food manufacturing81,993 private jobs in 2025, 4.6% 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. Sanitation audits remove cracked or stained pallets. A change of packaging line retires a colour-coded set. Pallets that held ingredients with strong odours or oils are culled early. In a pile from here, photograph the deck surface and any staining.
• Plastics product manufacturing29,656 private jobs in 2025, 5.2% 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. In a pile from here, photograph moulded codes and maker marks.
• Dairy product manufacturing28,840 private jobs in 2025, 17.1% of the US total. Cold-room cycles and wash chemistry. Dairy residue and milk fats cling to textured decks. Pallets are replaced on a schedule or when a crack harbours residue. Say if pallets were washed with strong chemicals. Say if any are coloured to mark zones. Dairies often retire sets of one colour. In a pile from here, photograph the colour code and any cracks.
• Meat and poultry processing16,349 private jobs in 2025, 2.9% of the US total. Washdown, grease and thermal cycling. Pallets are retired when the surface cannot be sanitised. Plant remodels retire whole colour-coded sets. In a pile from here, photograph the surface condition, close up.
• Fruit and vegetable preserving11,014 private jobs in 2025, 6.3% of the US total. 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 Wisconsin's pallet economy

Private jobs in 2025: food manufacturing 81,993, pharmaceutical manufacturing 6,578, motor vehicle assembly 4,788 and auto parts 7,511. Measured against the national share of employment, dairy product manufacturing is the most concentrated pallet-using industry here, at 8.9 times.

Cold storage in Wisconsin

USDA counted 297 million cubic feet of gross refrigerated warehouse space in Wisconsin on October 1, 2025, 4th of 36 states. Cold stores wear pallets differently, and the refrigerated warehousing page says how.

What the size of the state means

Wisconsin 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 North Central states

Against Wisconsin's 33,054 warehousing jobs, the largest metros in the same division are Chicago, Illinois (59,586, 1.80 times), Indianapolis, Indiana (41,067, 1.24 times), Columbus, Ohio (34,200, 1.03 times), Detroit, Michigan (30,083, 0.91 times), Cincinnati, Ohio (19,940, 0.60 times) and Cleveland, Ohio (13,652, 0.41 times).

Next to Wisconsin

The table sets the warehousing counts of Illinois, Iowa, Michigan and Minnesota against Wisconsin.

Metros we cover in Wisconsin

Milwaukee and Green Bay each have a page with ZIPs, counties and a corridor note.

• Milwaukee-Waukesha8,262 warehousing jobs, 37th of 60 metros. ZIPs 53209, 53218, 53051.
• Green Bay584 warehousing jobs, 59th of 60 metros. ZIPs 54304, 54311, 54313.

Marked pallets in Wisconsin

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

Describing a Wisconsin load

Three facts first for Wisconsin: ZIP, count, footprint. Pallets from plastics product manufacturing want moulded codes and maker marks photographed; food manufacturing pallets want the deck surface and any staining photographed.