Recycling 48 x 40 plastic pallets: who retires them and how a load is sorted

What a 48 x 40 in GMA pallet is

The GMA pallet, the North American standard. ISO 6780 lists 1016 x 1219 mm for North America. It carries general shipping, grocery, retail and manufacturing, and it makes up just over half of one supplier’s listed plastic pallets.

Who retires it

Retailers who change a pallet standard, distribution centres that automate, and food plants that retire hygienic sets. Because so many companies use it, a retired 48 x 40 stack is the easiest footprint to place as a pallet before it is ground.

How the sort goes

More styles share this size than any other. Nestable, rackable, stackable and combined models all come in 48 x 40, in HDPE and PP, so the sort here is by style first. A turned pattern fits about 30 stacks on a 53 ft dry van, per one supplier.

What a 48 x 40 in GMA load needs to describe

Say the style, because it changes the trailer count so much. Then the count, the resin, the colour, any marks and the ZIP.

Size matters for the trailer. Deck area here is 13.3 sq ft, and 1100 x 1100 mm is next closest at 13.0 sq ft, so check you have not got the two mixed together.

Reading the measurements

The deck is 48 inches by 40 inches, which is 1219 by 1016 millimetres, 1,920 square inches or 1.239 square metres. The diagonal is 62.5 inches. In shape it is a modest rectangle, with a long side 1.20 times the short one.

Square pallets are easy to rotate, while rectangular ones are not. A 48 by 40 pile should be stacked with the long sides together.

Edges and corners of the 48 x 40 deck

The deck edge runs 176 inches all the way round, which is 14.7 feet, and every foot of it is a place where a fork strikes, a rack beam bears or a strap bites. Four sound corners on a 1,920 square inch deck mean the pallet may be reusable; four broken ones usually mean the grinder.

Describing a 48 x 40 lot

Tell us how many 48 x 40 pallets there are, what colour they are and whether the decks are whole. Loose or banded matters to the driver. One picture of an underside, showing any steel and the maker mark, answers questions the reply would otherwise have to ask.

Where 48 x 40 piles turn up

Every dock that ships grocery, retail or general freight has some. They gather behind receiving doors, in trailer yards and at the end of racking rows, often in several colours and makers at once. Because so many models share the size, the pile is rarely uniform.

How to photograph a mixed 48 x 40 pile

Take one wide shot of the whole pile and one close shot of the deck of a typical pallet. Then photograph each different maker, colour or model once, with the underside showing. Three or four pictures cover a pile that would take a page to describe.