Bulletin 016 · regrind

HDPE scrap from plastic pallets, by the load

Last reviewed Nov 12, 20267 stages

The short answer

HDPE scrap from pallets is sold and moved as a load, not a flake. A load of HDPE scrap is described by count, colour, condition and ZIP before it is ground.

This page is about the load. The regrind page is about the flake.

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.

A load is a number

Count the pallets, then say the footprint. Four hundred 48 x 40 pallets fill a different amount of trailer from four hundred nestables. Nesting gets about 1,260 empty nestables into a 53 ft trailer on one Rehrig model, so stack style changes everything.

Colour in the load

All black is the clean case. One other colour is next. A pile with every colour is still welcome, just a different stream. Do not guess. Look at the decks.

Contamination

Paint, labels, food residue, oil. HDPE scrap that carried chemical drums goes in a different bin from HDPE scrap that carried boxes. Say what yours carried.

Photos

One of the stack, one of the worst damage, one of any mark. That is enough to start.

Describe by stack

A scrap load is easiest to place when every stack is a line: count, footprint, colour and condition. A single total hides the mix.

What dirt does

Soil, oil and food residue can foul flake and stain the colour. Say what the pallets sat in. A clean warehouse pile and a yard pile are different grades.

Part loads

A part load of one resin and one colour can be as useful as a full load of mixed pallets. Describe it as it is.

HDPE scrap, described

Field	Say	Example
Count	How many	About 400
Footprint	Size in inches	48 x 40
Colour	Black, one, mixed	Mostly black, some blue
Condition	Sound, cracked, burnt, crushed	Cracked
Marks	None, some, most	None
ZIP	Where it sits	Any

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.
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.comHDPE is the most common resin in plastic pallets; PP is more rigid and the page recommends it for unsupported racking.
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 can deform (creep) under heavy long-term loads and are hard to repair.
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).
palletenterprise.comIn 2011 a Quebec court ruled that CHEP's identified blue pallets belong to CHEP and cannot be sold.
nelsoncompany.comThat Nelson model lists about 60 pallets per stack and 1,800 per truck.
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.
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.
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.
nelsoncompany.comPallet capacities are issued by the manufacturer from calculation and lab or field tests, and assume an evenly distributed load.
nelsoncompany.comFor products touching the pallet directly, stricter federal requirements may call for non-blended virgin HDPE; recycled pallets often meet general FDA needs.

Terms on this page

HDPE: High-density polyethylene, resin code 2. The most common resin in plastic pallets; tough and moisture resistant.
Flake: The small, irregular pieces a granulator makes. Flake is regrind before it is sold or melted.
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.
Trailer fill: How much of a trailer a load takes: a quarter, half or full. It sizes the freight job.
Nestable: Empty pallets stack inside one another, cutting empty storage space by up to 75 percent.
Deck: The flat surface that carries the load. A pallet may have a top deck, a bottom deck or both.
Contamination: Anything in a load that is not the target resin: labels, metal, dirt, wood, food residue or another plastic.
Ownership check: Our first step with any pallet that carries a name, logo, tag or colour that suggests another owner.

Questions people ask

Is HDPE scrap worth anything?

It depends on resin, colour and cleanliness, and no number can be given before the pallets are seen.

Do you buy HDPE scrap?

We take loads and find the next step. Who pays whom depends on the load, so we do not state it up front.

What is the difference between scrap and regrind?

Scrap is the pallets. Regrind is what they become.

What is HDPE scrap?

Pallets, crates, drums and other moulded HDPE that is finished with its first use. On this site, it means pallets.

Do you accept other HDPE scrap?

This site is for plastic pallets. Other HDPE items are not what we route.

Sources, reviewed Nov 12, 2026: Rehrig Pacific, 40 x 48 standard-duty nestable pallet; Wikipedia, high-density polyethylene.