Bulletin 026 · processing

Post-industrial plastic recycling: what a pallet load counts as

Last reviewed Nov 12, 20267 stages

The short answer

Post-industrial plastic is scrap that comes from a factory, warehouse or distribution centre before a consumer uses it. A plastic pallet that ends its trips in a warehouse yard is counted as post-industrial.

The label matters because recycled-content claims separate post-industrial from post-consumer.

Got a load like this?

Five questions and a photo. We say what we think happens next once the pallets have been seen.

Send a load Find your area

A mesh screen sets the flake size. What passes goes on; the oversize goes back to the grinder.

What counts

A pallet from a warehouse, a food plant or a parts supplier is a business asset. When it is retired or broken there, the resin is post-industrial. A pallet that went home with a household is something else, and that is rare.

Why it is valued

Post-industrial feedstock is usually cleaner and better described than consumer plastic. Greystone Logistics also buys post-industrial plastic from other sources.

Paper trail

A recycled-content pallet may use post-industrial resin, post-consumer resin or both. Rehrig says its heavy-duty nestable can be made with either. The paperwork should say which.

What we count it as

We treat a warehouse pile as post-industrial feedstock and say so in the description. We do not state recycled-content percentages without a sourced figure.

Post-industrial means a known source

A pallet that has been used in a factory or warehouse and then scrapped by the same company has a known history. That history is why buyers pay attention to it, and why the load description names the source.

Why the distinction is made

Post-consumer content is recovered after use by a consumer. Post-industrial is scrap from manufacturing and business. Recycled-content claims often separate the two, and the pallet industry mostly deals in post-industrial.

Records worth keeping

The site, the product the pallets carried, any chemicals involved and the dates. A buyer with a food or pharmaceutical customer may need that history before they will take the regrind.

Post-industrial or post-consumer

Source	Counted as	Example
Warehouse yard	Post-industrial	Broken pallets after a season
Factory floor	Post-industrial	Retired footprint after a change
Household	Post-consumer	Rare for pallets

What the sources say

rehrigpacific.comRehrig Pacific's heavy-duty nestable can be made with post-consumer or post-industrial recycled material, up to 30 percent in black and up to 10 percent in colour, and is RFID compatible.
nelsoncompany.comNelson Company defines dynamic capacity as the load a pallet carries in motion, always below static; static as the load at rest and the bottom pallet's limit in a stack; racking as the load across an open rack span, often the lowest and given only for pallets designed for it.
en.wikipedia.orgPlastic pallets are often described as lasting 100 trips or more, and can cost roughly 10 times as much as hardwood pallets.
en.wikipedia.orgPlastic pallets are made by injection molding, structural foam molding, thermoforming, compression molding, rotational molding and profile extrusion.
en.wikipedia.orgAbout 500 million pallets are made each year as of 2020, with about 2 billion in use in the US.
phsinc.comPHS lists its EXP 100 nestable (48 x 40 x 5.2 in) at 78 pallets per stack and 2,340 per truckload, and its EXP 116 (48 x 40 x 5.75 in, 15,000 lb static) at 40 per stack and 1,260 per truckload: a higher static rating comes with fewer pallets per stack.
nelsoncompany.comPallet capacities are issued by the manufacturer from calculation and lab or field tests, and assume an evenly distributed load.
eponline.comIn December 2011 a Los Angeles County Sheriff task force recovered over $250,000 of illegally obtained plastic pallets, including iGPS pallets, from a plastic recycler.
palletenterprise.comCalifornia AB 1760 (2022) lets recyclers take possession of stray proprietary pallets if the owner cannot be identified or fails to retrieve them in time, with a 35-day period before they can be declared abandoned.
en.wikipedia.orgPlastic pallets weigh about 3 to 15 lb when light and up to 300 lb when heavy; a typical GMA wood pallet weighs about 37 lb.
resource-recycling.comGreystone Logistics processed about 60 million pounds of recycled plastic in the year ended May 31, 2024, using damaged plastic pallets from a buy-back program among its feedstock.
blog.containerexchanger.comNorth American plastic pallets in the common sizes are about 5 to 6 in tall.
blog.containerexchanger.comThe 800 x 1200 mm Euro footprint is the second most popular plastic pallet size worldwide.
en.wikipedia.orgMetal pallets are under 1 percent of the pallet market.

Terms on this page

Post-industrial: Scrap from manufacturing and business use, as opposed to material recovered from households.
Reuse cycle: One trip out with a load and back again. Some pallets are rated for a number of them.
Recycled-content pallet: A pallet moulded partly or wholly from post-industrial or post-consumer resin.
Post-consumer: Material recovered after a product has been used, then sorted and reprocessed.
Nestable: Empty pallets stack inside one another, cutting empty storage space by up to 75 percent.
Regrind: Plastic ground from used or scrap parts into flakes for moulding again.
Footprint: The length and width of a pallet’s deck, for example 48 x 40 inches.

Questions people ask

What does post-industrial plastic recycling mean?

Recycling plastic that came out of industrial or commercial use rather than from a household.

Is post-industrial better?

Usually cleaner. Not necessarily better for every use.

Do you document source?

We describe what the load was. Documentation of a finished pallet comes from its maker.

Are scrap pallets post-industrial or post-consumer?

Pallets scrapped by the business that used them are generally treated as post-industrial. Check the definition your buyer uses.

Does the label change the price?

We state no price. It can change who will accept the material.

Sources, reviewed Nov 12, 2026: Resource Recycling, Greystone Logistics; Rehrig Pacific, heavy-duty nestable.