Bulletin 178 · industries
Plastics processors retire plastic pallets for their own reasons, and a recycler needs the load described by those reasons. Plastics product manufacturing employed 575,006 people at private employers in the US in 2025.
Five questions and a photo. We say what we think happens next once the pallets have been seen.
Pallets for resin bags and finished goods, 48 x 40 and 43 x 43 for bulk bags. Moulders may also make pallets.
Retired stock after a product line ends. Some processors regrind their own scrap, and a pallet pile is one more feedstock.
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.
Photograph moulded codes and maker marks. Then add the ZIP, the count and the footprint.
BLS counted 575,006 private jobs across 12,344 establishments in plastics product manufacturing (NAICS 3261) in 2025. The states with the most jobs were Ohio (42,286), Texas (40,945), California (35,933), Pennsylvania (34,094) and Indiana (33,122).
Of the thirteen industries on this site, plastics product manufacturing ranks 5 by jobs, with 6.8% of the thirteen’s 8,423,298 combined jobs, and 7 by jobs per site, at 46.6 against 42.6 for all thirteen together. Big sites usually mean big piles and fewer, larger loads. Small sites mean more calls and smaller trailers.
Name the plant type, the pallet size you hold and the count, give the pickup ZIP and say whether trucks can reach a dock. For plastics product manufacturing, add what the pallets carried and whether they were washed, since that history shapes how a recycler grades the lot. Photographs of a typical pallet and of the pile make the reply faster and more exact.
| State | Jobs | Share of US |
|---|---|---|
| Ohio | 42,286 | 7.4% |
| Texas | 40,945 | 7.1% |
| California | 35,933 | 6.2% |
| Pennsylvania | 34,094 | 5.9% |
| Indiana | 33,122 | 5.8% |
| State | Jobs, 2025 | Share of US |
|---|---|---|
| Ohio | 42,286 | 7.35% |
| Pennsylvania | 34,094 | 5.93% |
| Indiana | 33,122 | 5.76% |
| Michigan | 32,916 | 5.72% |
| Wisconsin | 29,656 | 5.16% |
| North Carolina | 27,700 | 4.82% |
| Minnesota | 14,511 | 2.52% |
| Alabama | 14,217 | 2.47% |
| Kentucky | 13,820 | 2.40% |
| South Carolina | 13,499 | 2.35% |
| Iowa | 8,910 | 1.55% |
| Kansas | 7,339 | 1.28% |
| Arkansas | 6,804 | 1.18% |
| New Hampshire | 4,093 | 0.71% |
| West Virginia | 4,044 | 0.70% |
| Metro | Jobs, 2025 | Share of US |
|---|---|---|
| Inland Empire | 8,907 | 1.55% |
| Grand Rapids | 6,946 | 1.21% |
| Cleveland | 5,137 | 0.89% |
| Hagerstown | 1,661 | 0.29% |
| Yakima | 1,005 | 0.17% |
| Industry | US jobs, 2025 | Establishments | Jobs per site | Jobs against plastics product manufacturing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Food manufacturing | 1,775,008 | 42,763 | 41.5 | 3.09 times |
| Chemical manufacturing | 892,426 | 25,801 | 34.6 | 1.55 times |
| Warehousing and storage | 1,901,976 | 23,345 | 81.5 | 3.31 times |
| Fruit and vegetable preserving | 173,844 | 2,936 | 59.2 | 0.30 times |
| Dairy product manufacturing | 168,222 | 2,809 | 59.9 | 0.29 times |
| Meat and poultry processing | 556,647 | 4,689 | 118.7 | 0.97 times |
| Beverage manufacturing | 316,938 | 16,316 | 19.4 | 0.55 times |
| Pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing | 350,886 | 7,786 | 45.1 | 0.61 times |
| Motor vehicle manufacturing | 288,633 | 934 | 309.0 | 0.50 times |
| Motor vehicle parts manufacturing | 521,212 | 6,414 | 81.3 | 0.91 times |
| Grocery and related product wholesale | 829,364 | 49,933 | 16.6 | 1.44 times |
| Refrigerated warehousing | 73,136 | 1,811 | 40.4 | 0.13 times |
Yes. Cracked and crushed HDPE and PP pallets from plastics processors are normal feedstock. The questions are residue, mixed colours and ownership.
12,344 establishments employed 575,006 people in the US in 2025, per BLS QCEW (NAICS 3261).
We state no volumes and no customer names. Describe your load and we say what we think happens next.
Sources, reviewed Nov 12, 2026: BLS Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages; BLS data for NAICS 3261.