The desk

About Plastic Pallet Buyers

Plastic Pallet Buyers is a desk for people who have plastic pallets to move. You tell it what is on the dock; it reads the lot the way a buyer does and says what can happen to it.

Last reviewed November 12, 2026

Send a lot

A closed, hygienic deck of the kind the desk reads every day

What the desk does

It reads a lot by size, style, grade, branding and location, and answers with one of three rulings: sold, returned or scrapped. It also says what is missing, so the next message is a photo or a count and not a guess.

You send what you have
Through the sorter or the contact page.
The desk reads it
Marks first, since a mark can end the sale, then size, style, grade and the ZIP.
It rules
Sold, returned or scrapped, with the reason.

What the desk will not do

Buy a pooled pallet from a holder. iGPS, CHEP, Orbis and any RFID-tagged pallet stay their owner's property.
Help remove, cover or hide a mark.
State a price, a minimum or a pickup date before it has read your lot.
Deal in wood pallets. This desk is plastic only; see plastic against wood.

Who sends lots

Distribution centers, plants retiring a footprint, retailers sitting on strays and manufacturers with recurring surplus. The industries pages say what each puts on the dock, and the areas pages cover all fifty states.

Where the facts come from

Every number on the site is from a source named on its page: federal employment and cold-storage counts, pallet suppliers' own product pages and trade reporting. Pages show when they were last reviewed. Where a fact could not be sourced, the page says so and states no number.

Words you will meet

UL 2335: UL fire-test standard for storage pallets, with an idle pallet test and a commodity storage test.
Static load: Weight a pallet carries at rest, or the bottom pallet carries when stacked. The highest of the three ratings.
Nestable: Empty pallets stack inside one another, cutting empty storage space by up to 75 percent.
Heat treated (HT): ISPM 15 treatment for wood: core at 56 C for 30 minutes. Not needed for plastic.
Closed loop: Pallets that travel between known sites and come back, so they are never lost to a downstream user.
Multi-trip pallet: A pallet designed to be returned and reused many times.
FM 4996: FM Approvals standard that rates a pallet as equal to wood in fire tests.
Commodity classification: Sprinkler design class of stored goods; an unlisted plastic pallet can raise it.
Thermoforming: Heated plastic sheet formed over a mould; lighter pallets.
Euro pallet: 800 x 1200 mm footprint.
Resin identification code: Number on a plastic part for the resin, which does not itself say whether it is recyclable.
PP: Polypropylene. More rigid than HDPE and better with heat and harsh chemicals; used where rack stiffness matters.
Virgin resin: New, unblended resin that has not been through a product before.
Recycled-content pallet: A pallet moulded partly or wholly from post-industrial or post-consumer resin.
Dynamic load: Weight a pallet carries while moving on a forklift, pallet jack or conveyor.
Racking load: Weight a pallet carries bridging an open span in unsupported racking. Often the lowest rating.

Who asks, and what they need

Warehouses with automated storage: Rackable pallets with a stated rack rating, cruciform base, consistent size for conveyors.
Distribution centres with surplus pallets: Sell or recycle excess lots, mixed makers and colours, broken pallets.
Pharmaceutical and healthcare shippers: Hygienic pallets that can be sanitised; documents on resin and colour; PP sometimes preferred for sterilisation.

What the sources say

Private employers in the US averaged 1,901,976 jobs across 23,345 establishments in warehousing and storage (NAICS 493) in 2025 (BLS QCEW). States with the most jobs: California (236,923), Texas (175,579), Pennsylvania (123,481), Florida (105,401), Ohio (98,354). (data.bls.gov)
The five states with the most warehousing and storage jobs held 39% of the national total in 2025, and the top ten held 58% (California, Texas, Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, Georgia, Illinois, New Jersey, Indiana, New York), BLS QCEW. (data.bls.gov)
Private employers in the US averaged 73,136 jobs across 1,811 establishments in refrigerated warehousing (NAICS 49312) in 2025 (BLS QCEW). States with the most jobs: California (9,969), Texas (6,638), New Jersey (5,388), Georgia (4,453), Pennsylvania (4,102). (data.bls.gov)
Private employers in the US averaged 829,364 jobs across 49,933 establishments in grocery and related product wholesale (NAICS 4244) in 2025 (BLS QCEW). States with the most jobs: California (109,827), Texas (75,474), Florida (63,967), New York (50,594), Illinois (48,629). (data.bls.gov)
Counties with the most private warehousing and storage jobs (NAICS 493) in 2025, BLS QCEW: San Bernardino County, California (67,058), Riverside County, California (51,310), Dallas County, Texas (44,657), Maricopa County, Arizona (42,291), San Joaquin County, California (28,518), Clark County, Nevada (28,250), Middlesex County, New Jersey (26,309), Will County, Illinois (25,357). (data.bls.gov)
Warehousing and storage (NAICS 493) was 1.4% of the 133,160,274 private-sector jobs QCEW counted in the US in 2025. (data.bls.gov)
Private warehousing and storage (NAICS 493) paid an average of $56,706 a year across 1,901,976 jobs in 2025 (BLS QCEW). (data.bls.gov)
States where dairy product manufacturing is the largest share of private jobs in 2025 (BLS QCEW): Wisconsin (1.1%), Vermont (0.8%), Idaho (0.7%), South Dakota (0.4%), Iowa (0.3%); the national share is 0.13%. (data.bls.gov)
Private employers in the US averaged 173,844 jobs across 2,936 establishments in fruit and vegetable preserving (NAICS 3114) in 2025 (BLS QCEW). States with the most jobs: California (27,518), Wisconsin (11,014), Washington (10,988), Ohio (10,327), Texas (9,194). (data.bls.gov)
Refrigerated warehouse facility counts on October 1, 2025 (USDA NASS): California 106, Wisconsin 94, Georgia 62, Texas 56, Washington 52, Florida 50, Pennsylvania 38. (esmis.nal.usda.gov)
Counties with the most private dairy product manufacturing jobs (NAICS 3115) in 2025, BLS QCEW, counties with disclosed data only: Sheboygan County, Wisconsin (3,238), Los Angeles County, California (3,204), Franklin County, Ohio (2,930), Tulare County, California (2,916), Dodge County, Wisconsin (2,659), Marathon County, Wisconsin (2,535). (data.bls.gov)
Counties with the most private grocery and related product wholesale jobs (NAICS 4244) in 2025, BLS QCEW, counties with disclosed data only: Los Angeles County, California (36,194), Cook County, Illinois (23,404), Miami-Dade County, Florida (14,422), Harris County, Texas (14,172), Dallas County, Texas (12,337), Maricopa County, Arizona (9,996). (data.bls.gov)
Counties with the most private refrigerated warehousing jobs (NAICS 49312) in 2025, BLS QCEW, counties with disclosed data only: Los Angeles County, California (2,320), Middlesex County, New Jersey (1,661), San Bernardino County, California (1,565), Cook County, Illinois (1,552), Wayne County, Michigan (1,041), Maricopa County, Arizona (871). (data.bls.gov)
States where food manufacturing is the largest share of private jobs in 2025 (BLS QCEW): Nebraska (4.9%), Arkansas (4.7%), Iowa (4.6%), Alaska (3.4%), Wisconsin (3.2%); the national share is 1.33%. (data.bls.gov)
States where meat and poultry processing is the largest share of private jobs in 2025 (BLS QCEW): Nebraska (3.7%), Arkansas (3.1%), Iowa (2.6%), Delaware (2.4%), Mississippi (2.0%); the national share is 0.42%. (data.bls.gov)
UL 2335 has an idle pallet test and a commodity storage test. (iccsafe.org)

Keep reading

Receiving desk

Send the lot

Size, count, grade, branding and ZIP. Photos help, and you can reply to the first answer with them. This site states no price or pickup date.