Operations guide · 10 min read
A practical guide to pallet recycling for operations managers.
Last reviewed January 2026
Ask about anything on this page
If something here does not match your situation, say so in the message field.
- Buy, sell, recycle or remove: tell us which way it flows
- Add the size, grade and quantity if you know them
- A partner supplier follows up
- Availability depends on partner suppliers
Past repair
Broken pallet wood headed for a grinder, where it can become mulch, bedding or fuel.
Setting it up
Four weeks to a working routine.
- Step 01
Week one: measure
Count what leaves and what accumulates. Photograph a typical stack. Pull twelve months of invoices for pallet purchases and waste removal — they are usually in different systems and nobody has added them together.
This step alone often finds the answer.
- Step 02
Week two: separate the streams
Whole 48×40 cores in one place, odd sizes in another, broken units in a third. Physically, with a painted line if necessary. Mixed piles are worth substantially less than the sum of their parts.
Sorting is the highest-return activity available.
- Step 03
Week three: get quotes
Ask for pricing per stream, in writing, with grade definitions attached. A quote that gives one number for 'pallets' is not comparable with anything.
Ask what happens if a load does not match.
- Step 04
Week four: agree the routine
Agree a regular pickup pattern and a signed count ticket per collection. If you need weights or other paperwork, ask whether the supplier can provide them before you agree anything.
Paperwork added later is paperwork you will argue about.
Deciding per stream
Sale or removal?
| Stream | Typical outcome | Indicative economics |
|---|---|---|
| Whole 48×40 cores | Sale | You are paid the most |
| Repairable 48×40 | Sale | You are paid less |
| Whole odd sizes | Sale | Depends on the size and the buyer |
| Broken and mixed | Removal | You usually pay |
| Wet or mouldy | Removal | You pay, and it is worth fixing the storage |
| Branded / pooled | Return to pool | Not yours to sell |
| Contaminated | Say so in your request | Depends on the contaminant and the supplier |
Records
Keep something behind the claim.
Saying your pallets get recycled is not evidence. If your organisation reports on waste, whoever signs off that report will want to see how much material left your site and where it went. Check what your own reporting needs with your compliance lead.
The simplest records are your own: a signed count for each collection and, where available, a weight, kept in one place. What paperwork you can get beyond that varies by supplier, so ask before you agree anything.
It is worth asking one further question: what happens to the material that cannot be reused? A supplier should be able to answer plainly, and a claim that nothing is ever wasted deserves scepticism.
- A signed count for each collection
- A weight, where the supplier can provide one
- A plain answer on what happens to unusable material
- Scepticism towards any claim that nothing is wasted
- One person on your side who keeps the records
Watch for
Four things that quietly wreck the routine
- 01The streams merge againThree months in, someone puts broken units on the good stack because it was closer. Paint lines, signage and a five-minute briefing at shift change prevent it.
- 02Storage goes outdoorsSpace gets tight, stacks move outside, and the value of the stream falls within a season. This is the most expensive silent failure in the list.
- 03Nobody owns itPallets fall between shipping, facilities and procurement. Name one owner or it will drift.
- 04Records stop being checkedThe tickets keep arriving and nobody reads them. Set a short quarterly review, because that is where discrepancies surface.
Questions
Recycling questions
Should we sort in-house or pay someone to?
In-house, if you have the labour and the space. The value uplift from sorting often justifies the labour. If you genuinely do not have the space, a mixed-load arrangement is honest; just expect it to be priced as mixed.
What volume justifies a regular pickup?
It depends on your volume and on what partner suppliers can offer. Describe your stream in the form. At lower volumes, one-off requests are fine and simpler.
Can one vendor handle both supply and collection?
Often, and it can cost less because the same truck does both. Say you need both in the form and we pass the request to a partner supplier. See services.
How do we handle pooled pallets in the stream?
Segregate and return them. Selling them is not an option, and a good vendor will pull them out for you rather than quietly reselling them.
Our empties are stacked outside. How much is that actually costing us?
Usually more than people expect. Wood above roughly 19% moisture drops a grade, and a stack left in the open through a season moves from the sale column to the removal column, from being paid for the load to paying to have it taken away. A roof and some dunnage go a long way.
Add up twelve months of invoices.
Purchases plus removals plus freight, on one page. Then describe your stream in the form and a partner supplier follows up.