Bulletin 008 · recycling

Old plastic pallets: reuse, repair or recycle

Last reviewed Nov 12, 20266 stages

The short answer

Old plastic pallets have three possible lives: sold or reused as pallets, welded and repaired, or ground into regrind. The right one depends on whether the pallet is still sound.

Sound pallets are worth looking at as pallets first. Cracked ones are feedstock.

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.

Sound and clean

A pallet with scuffs and colour variation but a flat deck and whole runners is a used pallet, not scrap. General-purpose and closed-loop work often wants them. These may be better sold or reused than ground.

Repaired or repairable

A cracked or chipped part can be welded or swapped. Some designs use a two-piece snap-lock to make repair quick. Repaired pallets are not for racking or food contact without the maker’s say.

Past it

Warped, brittle or badly cracked pallets, and ones that sat in the cold. Freezing can make some pallet materials brittle. These are feedstock and they are welcome.

Still marked

If an old pallet carries a pool name, check it before anything else. A rented pallet is not yours to recycle, whatever its age.

How long a pallet lasts

A plastic pallet can last through many trips, and a lot of old ones are simply old, not broken. Age alone is not a reason to scrap one. Condition, footprint and ownership are.

Selling an old pallet

Common footprints with no cracks have buyers. Odd sizes, discoloured or deformed pallets mostly do not. If you try to sell first and fail, the pile goes to regrind with nothing lost but time.

Old pallet, three outcomes

Condition	Best route	Why
Whole, flat deck	Reuse or resale	Worth more as a pallet
Cracked, repairable	Weld, then reuse	Plastic is welded, not glued
Warped, brittle, crushed	Regrind	No longer safe to load
Another owner’s mark	Ownership check first	Pooled pallets belong to the pool

What the sources say

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.
en.wikipedia.orgPlastic pallets can deform (creep) under heavy long-term loads and are hard to repair.
palletenterprise.comIn 2011 a Quebec court ruled that CHEP's identified blue pallets belong to CHEP and cannot be sold.
nelsoncompany.comThat used pallet is listed as pharma and food safe but not approved for direct food contact, in colours that vary.
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.orgResin identification codes do not indicate whether a product is recyclable; ASTM D7611 governs the coding.
en.wikipedia.orgHDPE has resin identification code 2, a density of 930 to 970 kg/m3, melts at 131.8 C and is hard to glue, so joints are usually welded.
nelsoncompany.comOnly pallets designed for unsupported racking carry a racking rating.
rehrigpacific.comRehrig Pacific's 40 x 48 standard-duty nestable pallet weighs 26.5 lb with a static rating of 10,000 lb and dynamic 3,000 lb.
nelsoncompany.comStatic capacity is the highest of the three ratings; racking is often the lowest; dynamic is always lower than static.
rehrigpacific.comRehrig Pacific's rackable pallet has a two-piece snap-lock design for quick repair and options for FDA-approved colours, RFID and up to 15 percent black recycled content.
rehrigpacific.comRehrig Pacific's 40 x 48 rackable pallet weighs 44.2 lb with a dynamic rating of 4,000 lb, static 10,000 lb and edge rack 2,000 lb.
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.comIn April 2017, HDPE HMW regrind from drums and IBCs was 24 to 27 cents per pound picked up in the US South (historical, not current).

Terms on this page

Reuse cycle: One trip out with a load and back again. Some pallets are rated for a number of them.
Welding repair: Plastic is hard to glue, so cracked parts are normally welded.
Regrind: Plastic ground from used or scrap parts into flakes for moulding again.
Deck: The flat surface that carries the load. A pallet may have a top deck, a bottom deck or both.
Runners: Bottom rails that touch the floor or rack and carry the load.
Closed loop: Pallets that travel between known sites and come back, so they are never lost to a downstream user.
Rackable: Rated to sit on rack beams, with a stated racking load.
Racking load: Weight a pallet carries bridging an open span in unsupported racking. Often the lowest rating.
Food contact: A material that touches food directly. Recycled content in food-contact use is held to rules a pallet deck usually is not.
Creep: Slow bending of plastic under a heavy load held for a long time.
Pooled pallet: A pallet owned by a rental pool and lent to users, who are expected to return it, not scrap it.
Pooling: Renting pallets from a company that owns, tracks and collects them instead of buying.
Footprint: The length and width of a pallet’s deck, for example 48 x 40 inches.
Ownership check: Our first step with any pallet that carries a name, logo, tag or colour that suggests another owner.

Questions people ask

How long do plastic pallets last?

They are often described as lasting 100 trips or more. A used one has made many of them and may have a lot left.

Is it worth fixing a cracked pallet?

Sometimes. The repair-or-recycle guide walks through it.

Can I sell old pallets to you?

This site recycles loads. If your pallets are sound, tell us in the form and say so.

Are old plastic pallets safe to reuse?

Check for cracks, warping and loose parts. A pallet that bends under a load it was rated for should not go back into service.

Do old pallets lose their rating?

The printed rating belongs to the pallet when it was new. Age, heat and damage can lower what it will carry.

Sources, reviewed Nov 12, 2026: Wikipedia, pallet; Nelson Company, capacity ratings explained.