Recycling 43 x 43 plastic pallets: who retires them and how a load is sorted

What a 43 x 43 in pallet is

The 1100 mm square pallet, designed for bulk bags such as Super Sacks. It carries food additives, feed and pharmaceutical ingredients. Nelson describes it as an Asian standard.

Who retires it

Ingredient handlers and feed mills, and importers who stopped using an Asian supplier. Stock often arrives as a single import lot.

How the sort goes

Bulk bag pallets are lightly loaded relative to their size but often kept in clean conditions. Check for dust or ingredient residue, which differs by what the bags held.

What a 43 x 43 in load needs to describe

Say what the bags held. Feed and additive dust is a known-different bin from clean packaging. Then the count, the resin, the colour, any marks and the ZIP.

Size matters for the trailer. Deck area here is 12.8 sq ft, and 1200 x 1000 mm is next closest at 12.9 sq ft, so check you have not got the two mixed together.

Reading the measurements

The deck is 43 inches by 43 inches, which is 1092 by 1092 millimetres, 1,849 square inches or 1.192 square metres. The diagonal is 60.8 inches. In shape it is square, with a long side 1.00 times the short one.

A tape across the diagonal, 61 inches or 1545 millimetres, is a quick check that a pallet is the size you think it is.

Edges and corners of the 43 x 43 deck

Walk the 14.3 feet of edge on a 43 x 43 in pallet and look at the corners first. Rounded, chipped or cracked corners are where a 43 by 43 deck gives up, and a photograph of each of the four corners tells a buyer more than a paragraph. Sound corners suggest reuse; broken ones suggest regrind.

Describing a 43 x 43 lot

A 43 x 43 in lot is described by count, resin, colour and condition, with a note on whether it sits banded or loose. Add the pickup ZIP, and photograph one underside so the maker marks and any metal are visible before anything is quoted.

Where 43 x 43 piles turn up

Ingredient handlers, feed mills and importers that took delivery on Asian pallets. The pallets come in as part of a delivery of bags and stay on the site until someone decides to send them out.

Dust and the bin

Feed and additive dust is a different bin from clean packaging. If the pallets carried bags of powder, say what the powder was, and photograph the deck. A thin coating of dust can matter more than a crack.