Are you having trouble finding enough used pallet cores? Do you have trouble finding more than one reliable source of used pallet parts?

Have you ever considered your local landfill as a "source?"

In 1995, more pallets ended up in landfills than at pallet recovery-repair companies. Virginia Tech and the U.S. Forest Service have developed a business plan spreadsheet model to encourage pallet recyclers and landfill operators to work together to provide new sources of pallet parts and pallets while reducing landfilling. This source of pallet parts could work for you.

Pallets and Landfills

Wood pallets break or end up in places where they are not needed. They can become a waste problem. Many find their way to pallet recovery and repair facilities, but many are sent to landfills. Some are taken to landfill recovery operations, but a large number are placed in municipal solid waste or construction and demolition no-further-use waste areas.

Landfilling is a waste of the pallet resource. There are better options that reduce landfilling of unwanted and discarded wood pallets and facilitate reuse of the pallet material. A feasible option returns the pallet material (parts or pallets) to pallet companies that rebuild, repair, and make pallets from used parts.

Consider the magnitude of the pallet situation. Each year a large number of new wood pallets are manufactured using a significant percentage of the hardwood lumber and cants produced in the U.S. — 4.5 billion board feet in 1995. Less significant portions of softwood lumber and cants are also needed — 1.8 billion board feet in 1995.

Once used, pallets are not necessarily discarded. In 1995 over 170 million wood pallets (2.6 billion board feet) were received by the pallet and container industry for repair or recycling. Almost 150 million were repaired and resold to pallet users.

However, the pallet retrieval-recovery system is not perfect, and wood pallets end up in landfills. The combined landfill totals (construction and demolition and municipal solid waste facilities) show that over 223 million pallets (6.14 million tons) passed through landfill gates in 1995. Approximately 17% (38 million pallets or 1.04 million tons) were recovered, mainly to low value uses and products.

Landfill operators would welcome markets for pallets or pallet wood that would return more money to their facilities. Many landfills have grinders and more would likely add grinders if they could be assured of an economical market for ground pallet material. They would also be interested in adding additional equipment to increase revenues and in partnering with pallet recovery firms.

Our research has found that discarded pallets at landfills could provide good raw materials for repairing pallets and for building pallets from used parts. Some parts could be converted into other products. However, many questions need to be answered before landfill recovery operations or pallet companies will consider investing capital to reclaim material from pallets at landfills. How many wood pallets are sent to the landfill? Can they be recovered? Are any being recovered? Are there opportunities to increase recovery? Are there higher-value options than present recovery methods such as grinding for fuel and other low-value products? Is recovery economically viable?

To help answer some of these questions and provide information for business plans, the Center for Forest Products Marketing and Management and the U.S. Forest Service Southern Research Station unit, both at Virginia Tech, have developed a computer spreadsheet model called PROACT (Pallet Recovery Opportunity Analysis Computer Tool). PROACT focuses on pallet recovery and reuse options for pallets prior to landfilling.

In the remainder of this article we report on pallet recovery options and present the results from a sample spreadsheet business plan developed using PROACT. The plan shows the economic potential of recovering pallet materials at a landfill given a set of conditions.

Recovery Options, Values

Discarded pallets can have value based on their size, condition, and the species of wood used in the pallet parts. For example, pallets in standard sizes needing no repairs are reusable and marketable. This represents the highest value use. Pallets can also be disassembled and the parts can be converted to standard or marketable sizes and sold to pallet recovery-repair companies. Some of the better parts could also be converted to products such as flooring, paneling or furniture.

The values of these recovery options can be expressed in terms of a standard 48x40 pallet as shown in Table 1. A ground pallet would be worth 25 cents for fuel or up to $1 if a panel furnish market is available producing particleboard or medium density fiberboard. Other uses of the ground material would be densified fuel pellets, animal bedding, mulch and colored mulch. The same pallet could be worth between $3-$6 if sold as a pallet or between $2-$3.50 if taken apart for repair replacement parts. These values depend on the quality of the pallet and how many useable parts can be removed from the pallet. The 48x40 pallet could also be worth between $5-$8 in flooring produced from good deck boards with the remaining parts sold as replacement pallet parts.