Bulletin 021 · regrind

Plastic scrap recycling: pallet loads and what makes them easy

Last reviewed Nov 12, 20267 stages

The short answer

Plastic scrap recycling works best when the scrap is one polymer, mostly clean, and described honestly. Pallet loads often are, which is why they make easy scrap.

What makes a pallet load easy: single resin, known ownership, sound sorting, and photos.

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.

One polymer

A scrap pile of mixed plastics is a sorting job. A pile of pallets is HDPE or PP. Splitting two resins is easier than splitting ten.

Known ownership

A load that is yours to send moves. A load with unknown marks waits. The pool-marked guide shows the marks to check.

Honest description

Count, condition, colour, contamination. Under-describing wastes a truck. Over-describing wastes a day.

Fit for a moulder

The test is whether a moulder can use the regrind. Clean, single-resin, colour-sorted flake is the answer.

Plastic scrap is many things

Film, bottles, bags, pipe, crates and pallets are all plastic scrap and each needs its own route. Pallets are among the easiest because they are large, rigid and a single resin.

Why a single resin matters

A moulder wants predictable behaviour in the machine. Mixed polymers do not melt at the same temperature, so they are separated before the flake is sold.

A good description

Resin, colour, form, source, quantity and location. The six facts that every buyer asks for.

What makes a scrap load easy

Feature	Easy	Harder
Resin	One	Mixed
Colour	Black or one	Every colour
Marks	None	Another owner’s
Residue	Dry and clean	Oil, food, chemicals

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.
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.orgThe 48 x 40 in GMA pallet makes up about 30 percent of new US wood pallets.
en.wikipedia.orgPlastic pallets can deform (creep) under heavy long-term loads and are hard to repair.
nelsoncompany.comFreezing can make some pallet materials brittle and reduce performance.
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.
nelsoncompany.comFor products touching the pallet directly, stricter federal requirements may call for non-blended virgin HDPE; recycled pallets often meet general FDA needs.
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.
nelsoncompany.comThat Nelson model is under 5 in tall, which the page says suits air freight, and works with automation and most roller conveyors.
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.

Terms on this page

Ownership check: Our first step with any pallet that carries a name, logo, tag or colour that suggests another owner.
HDPE: High-density polyethylene, resin code 2. The most common resin in plastic pallets; tough and moisture resistant.
PP: Polypropylene. More rigid than HDPE and better with heat and harsh chemicals; used where rack stiffness matters.
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.
Nestable: Empty pallets stack inside one another, cutting empty storage space by up to 75 percent.
Contamination: Anything in a load that is not the target resin: labels, metal, dirt, wood, food residue or another plastic.
Moulder: A manufacturer that melts regrind or pellets and forms them into parts, such as pallets.
Regrind: Plastic ground from used or scrap parts into flakes for moulding again.
Flake: The small, irregular pieces a granulator makes. Flake is regrind before it is sold or melted.

Questions people ask

What plastic scrap do you take?

Plastic pallets, HDPE and PP.

Is scrap plastic recycling profitable?

We do not state economics. It depends on the load.

Can I send other plastics?

No. Those belong with other recyclers.

Do you take plastic scrap that is not pallets?

No. This site is for plastic pallets.

What is the best plastic scrap?

One resin, one colour, clean and in a form the buyer can feed.

Sources, reviewed Nov 12, 2026: EPA, plastics material-specific data; Association of Plastic Recyclers.