More than 540 truckloads of end-of-life plastic pallets and boxes have been collected since 2019, as the UK supplier moves 60% of the way toward its 2030 recycling target.
GoPlasticPallets.com has recycled 3,000 tonnes of plastic pallets and boxes through a take-back program launched in 2019, doubling an original target the UK company had expected to reach only last year.
The Eastbourne-based supplier collects plastic pallets and boxes at the end of their working lives and sends them to a recycling facility in Belgium, where the material is used to manufacture new products. Importantly, the company says the program accepts qualifying plastic pallets and boxes regardless of who originally supplied them.
More than 540 truckloads of material have been sent for recycling since the program began.
GoPlasticPallets originally set a target of recycling 1,500 tonnes by the end of 2025 but reached that mark two years early. It subsequently raised the target to 5,000 tonnes by 2030 and is now 60% of the way there.
Closing the Loop on Long-Life Assets
The milestone provides an interesting counterpoint to the usual discussion around reusable plastic pallets and containers. Their environmental case is largely built around repeated use over a long service life, but eventually those assets wear out or become too damaged to remain in circulation.
GoPlasticPallets says much of the material now being returned consists of first-generation plastic pallets and boxes that entered supply chains many years ago. At the same time, more than 90% of the pallets and boxes it currently sells are made from recycled material, according to the company.
“This isn’t just a vanity side project for us,” Finance Director Lee Denyer said. “Sustainability is deeply ingrained across our entire business. More than nine in ten of the pallets and boxes we sell are already made from recycled material, and we guarantee to recycle all products we supply once they reach the end of their lifespan.”
That combination of recycled content, extended service life and an established route for recovering material at end of life is particularly relevant as companies look more closely at the full lifecycle of reusable transport packaging.
The company estimates that recycling 3,000 tonnes of plastic rather than sending the same quantity to landfill has avoided more than 2,500 tonnes of CO2 equivalent. The calculation uses conversion factors published by WRAP through the UK’s CarbonWARM2 carbon waste and resources metric. GoPlasticPallets says the saving is roughly equivalent to taking 640 UK cars off the road for a year.
Denyer said customer participation has helped the program build momentum.
“Reaching the 3,000 tonne milestone is an incredible team effort, built up shipment by shipment since 2019,” he said. “It also says a lot about the appetite our customers have for doing the right thing with their old equipment, and we’re proud to have made that as easy as possible for them.”
The company’s next target is 5,000 tonnes by 2030, although it believes the current pace could see that milestone reached a year early.
Rick LeBlanc, EMBA, is the founder and editor of Reusable Packaging News (subscribe to the free newsletter) and editor of Western Pallet Magazine. A supply chain journalist with more than 30 years of experience, he specializes in pallets, reusable packaging, material handling and related operations. Rick is co-author of Pallets: A North American Perspective and Pallets & Progress: A Collected History of Pallets and Palletized Handling 1922–1945. He is also an advisory board member of the Virginia Tech Center for Packaging and Unit Load Design. Read Rick’s full bio.
