Bulletin 004 · recycling

Plastic pallet recycling near you, in every state

Last reviewed Nov 12, 20267 stages

The short answer

Plastic pallet recycling near you means a processor and a freight lane that suit your ZIP. We collect nationally and sort the load by state and metro, so start with the area page nearest the pile.

Every state and 60 metros have a page with the local pallet-using industries and ZIPs.

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

Four bins. A load goes to the one that fits first and moves if the pallets say otherwise.

50state pages

60metro pages

4states with the deepest pages

Find your state

The state pages open with the industries that fill yards there: food plants in Wisconsin, auto parts in Michigan, chemical plants in Texas and Louisiana. The load you have probably looks like the load a neighbour has.

California, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Texas carry the most detail. The rest follow the same plan.

Then your metro

Metros carry ZIPs and the warehousing districts with the most establishments. Southern California, Chicagoland, Dallas-Fort Worth and the Inland Empire are each a different freight problem. A metro page says which.

Say the ZIP of the pile

The form asks for the ZIP where the pallets sit. It is the one piece of location we need first. A street address comes later, if at all.

Check the corridor

Loads travel along interstate lanes. Many metro pages mention the corridor they sit on, such as I-35, I-80, I-95 or I-10, because a lane with other loads on it is easier to route.

Why near me is a ZIP question

A plastic pallet load is heavy and bulky for its value. The distance between the pile and the next step affects whether a load is worth moving, so the ZIP is the first fact we ask for and the one that decides which lane applies.

Cities, counties and corridors

Our metro pages follow Census metro areas, which cross state lines and take in several counties. The corridor notes follow the Interstates the metros sit on. A pile in a county with no metro page is placed by ZIP against the nearest metro.

What to do if your area has no page

Use the state page. It has the state’s numbers and the nearest metros. The form takes a ZIP anywhere in the United States, and Alaska and Hawaii are looked at load by load.

Where the biggest pallet-using clusters sit

Corridor descriptions follow the metros listed on each area page.
Corridor	Runs	Why it matters for loads
I-95	Miami to Maine	Port-adjacent warehouses and pharma plants
I-80	San Francisco to New Jersey	Chicago and northern New Jersey distribution
I-35	Laredo to Duluth	Dallas-Fort Worth warehousing and food plants
I-10	Los Angeles to Jacksonville	Inland Empire, Houston, Phoenix warehousing
I-75	Miami to Michigan	Auto parts in the north, grocery in the south

What the sources say

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.
nelsoncompany.comThat Nelson model is under 5 in tall, which the page says suits air freight, and works with automation and most roller conveyors.
nelsoncompany.comAdvanced composite material pallets are 100 percent recycled polyolefins, cheaper with a shorter life, and suit export where the pallet is not returned.
nelsoncompany.comHDPE is the most common resin in plastic pallets; PP is more rigid and the page recommends it for unsupported racking.
cabka.comCabka says plastic export pallets are exempt from ISPM-15 treatment, that there is no single export size, and that its nestable export designs include extra-lightweight and air-freight versions.
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.
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.
rehrigpacific.comRehrig Pacific's 40 x 48 heavy-duty nestable pallet is 48.25 x 40.25 x 6.5 in, weighs 28.5 lb, is rated 10,000 lb static and 3,500 lb dynamic, has a 2.55 in nest increment and 1,200 units per 53 ft trailer; the page lists no racking rating.
en.wikipedia.orgPlastic pallets are often described as lasting 100 trips or more, and can cost roughly 10 times as much as hardwood pallets.
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.

Questions people ask

Do you have a yard I can drop pallets at?

No. We do not run a public yard. We route the load from where it sits.

Is there a minimum load?

We cannot state a minimum. Send what you have and we say what we think happens next.

Do you cover Alaska and Hawaii?

We list both. Freight to them is its own question, so those loads are looked at one by one.

Do you have a depot in my city?

This site does not name depots. The area pages show where warehousing is concentrated, not where we are.

How do I find the nearest metro?

Open your state page. It lists the metros we cover with their jobs and busiest ZIPs.

Sources, reviewed Nov 12, 2026: BLS Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages.