Are you trying to figure out how to dispose of wooden pallets? Empty pallets can be an eyesore, not to mention a risk for fire or personal injury. In this article, I offer tips for homeowners, small businesses or facilities, and larger enterprises on how to get rid of them. While it will be useful to read the entire article, the most pertinent advice is organized according to category. Keep in mind that there may be liability considerations regarding individuals coming to collect the pallets.
The ease of reuse or recovery often depends on pallet design and condition. For a broader explanation of wood pallet types and construction, visit our wood pallets overview.
While an immediate solution to clearing your unwanted pallets might be a temporary dumpster, other approaches can make better sense over the long haul. Please read this article to find out how businesses and homeowners can proceed.
Disposal decisions are closely tied to reuse economics and pallet design, topics addressed more broadly in Packaging Revolution’s wood pallet lifecycle resource.
How to Dispose of Wooden Pallets from Your Home
You are not alone if you end up with pallets at your home and aren’t sure what to do with them. You can end up with empty sod pallets after a landscaping job, or empty pallets left after home renovations. At my house, we brought in two pallets of rocks to enhance the backyard, and we ended up with two heavy empty pallets to get rid of.
Here are some ideas for disposing of unwanted wooden pallets from your home.
Call the supplier for an empty pallet pickup. In some cases the supplier will come by and pick them up, depending upon delivery truck availability and the value of the pallets.
Return pallets for deposit. Some suppliers will include a pallet deposit fee which can be redeemed by returning the empty pallets. Remember those two empty pallets that carried the stone material? I got my friend, who has a pickup truck, to help me return them to the rock supplier.
Put them by the street with a “free” sign on them. Making things from old pallets, known as pallet crafting, is popular. If pallets are in decent condition, they may disappear in short order.
List the free pallets on Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist. I did this in combination with the “free sign” on the street for some empty pallets. They quickly disappeared and I’m not sure whether it was the sign or the ad that made the difference. One thing to keep in mind is to stack pallets neatly. The more inviting the pallets look in the photo, the more likely that someone will come for them. Also, neatly stacked pallets will be safer for people to handle than pallets tossed randomly in a heap.
Other ideas. If you can’t get rid of them through any of the ideas listed above, you could call a junk removal company. If wood waste is allowed in your landfill or your yard waste program, you could cut the pallet up (with great care and using personal protection equipment – watch out for nails) to fit it in the bin.
How to Dispose of Wooden Pallets from Your Small Business or Facility
Small businesses and other facilities such as schools or care homes can also look to dispose of empty pallets. Here are some ideas for resolving the issue.
Understand which pallets need to be disposed of. Before we leap into ideas for disposing of pallets, keep in mind that your business might be held financially responsible for returning at least some of them to the shipper. A pallet deposit or other mechanism might result in you being charged for unreturned pallets, so make sure to understand which pallets you need to dispose of, and which ones you need to store for return. For ones that must be returned, protect them from theft.
Ask the delivery driver to take them back. In some cases, it might be feasible to empty the pallet at the time of the delivery and have the driver remove it. Or if it is a regular delivery, have the driver remove the empty pallets on his next visit. Offer other unwanted pallets as well. Sometimes companies are looking for extras.
Put them out with a “free” sign, use Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist. As with home pallet disposal, this technique can also work for smaller organizations and can lead to longer-term relationships with pallet crafters who return regularly to take them away.
Utilize pallet pickers. Pallet pickers are individuals, typically wth a pickup truck or trailer, who pick up small amounts of pallets and resell them. Many small businesses have relationships with pickers, who will put your business on their pickup route. They might stumble across your business, or you could call local pallet recyclers and ask them to recommend one to you.
Ask for pallets that are easier to dispose of. As a small business owner, you might not have much influence on selecting the pallet to deliver your product. However, some pallets are much more likely to be taken away than others. Standard 48×40” pallets are highly attractive to pallet pickers, for example.
How to Dispose of Wooden Pallets from Your Large Business
While the tactics outlined above will make sense for smaller operations, things will be different for a company that generates large amounts of empty pallets, such as manufacturing plants and distribution centers. As such, you can’t take an ad hoc approach, such as those outlined above. Emitters of large quantities of empty pallets need a formal strategy to ensure that operations are not negatively impacted by accumulations of empty pallets.
Here are some ideas for larger companies:
Encourage vendors to retrieve their empty pallets. Reusable pallets are becoming increasingly popular as supply chain participants look to become more sustainable and lower their costs. Where volume is adequate and shipping distance is reasonable, reusable pallet programs can make sense.
Encourage vendors to use standard pallets. As mentioned above, standard sized pallets such as the 48×40” have greater value to pallet recyclers, and they will be motivated to pick up your empty pallets – and perhaps pay you for them. Pallet recyclers will typically also take away other oddball wood pallets and wood waste. Extra charges might be levied for such service.
Ask vendors to ship on rental pallets. Again, if distances or other reverse logistics challenges make a packaging return program impractical or a distraction from core activities, discuss with the shipper the possibility of using a rental pallet provider such as CHEP.
Consider pallet flow through. Pallet flow through can be defined as reusing a pallet that has arrived under load after it has been emptied and using it for outbound shipping. Think about pallet flow-through as an option. This method was first pioneered over seventy years ago but used far too infrequently. Can your supplier send goods to you on a pallet that you can reuse to ship your product?
Inline low-speed grinding. For manufacturing companies that regularly receive considerable amounts of disposable wooden packaging, it can make sense to install a quiet wood grinder to reduce it to wood fiber. There are various markets for fiber and it might be possible to monetize this residual material.
This concludes our discussion regarding how to dispose of wooden pallets. If you have additional pallet disposal challenges not addressed above, or innovative solutions to share, please reach out.
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.
