Industries · Plastics manufacturing

Selling plastic pallets from plastics manufacturing

Plastics manufacturers and recyclers buy broken pallets by weight as HDPE or PP feedstock, and they also sell pallets of their own. The two sides read a lot differently.

Last reviewed November 12, 2026

Send a lot

A dock lane: numbered doors, floor tape, staged stacks

What plastics manufacturing sellers have

A plastics plant may be a seller, with pallets from its own line or retired footprints, or a buyer, taking damaged pallets as feedstock. One processor reported using damaged pallets from a buy-back program among its feedstock, processing about 60 million pounds of recycled plastic in the year ended May 31, 2024.

Footprints and styles in plastics manufacturing lots

Reads	Which	Why it matters
Size	48 x 40	the general footprint
Size	48 x 45	automotive plastics
Size	45 x 45	chemical-adjacent
Style	injection moulded	the plant's own process
Style	nestable	stacks for storage
Style	export one way	light stock

The plastics manufacturing market in numbers

Plastics product manufacturing, 2025 (BLS QCEW)
Measure	Figure
Private jobs	575,006
Establishments	12,344
Top states	Ohio 42,286; Texas 40,945; California 35,933; Pennsylvania 34,094; Indiana 33,122

These are the states where pallet makers and recyclers sit nearest a plant that might be a seller, so ZIP matters.

How a plastics manufacturing lot is read

Seller side: the desk reads your pallets as any lot, and a retired footprint is a good lot if it is whole.

Feedstock side: HDPE is resin code 2, the most common pallet resin and what scrap decks are ground from; PP is stiffer. A resin identification code names the resin, not whether the part is recyclable.

What to say when you send a plastics manufacturing lot

Resin, if known: HDPE or PP
Colour
Whether the lot is whole or broken
Count by weight if you have it

SOLD

Plastics manufacturing pallets that are whole, unmarked and described.

RETURN

Plastics manufacturing pallets with a pool name, a customer code or an RFID tag.

SCRAP

Plastics manufacturing pallets with cracked, burnt or crushed decks.

Do you buy from plastics plants?

Send the lot like any other. A plant is a seller as much as a buyer.

Does a resin code tell me a pallet is recyclable?

No. The code names the resin. ASTM D7611 governs the coding.

Words you will meet

HDPE: High-density polyethylene, resin code 2. The most common resin in plastic pallets; tough and moisture resistant.
Injection moulding: Pallet made by forcing molten resin into a mould at high pressure.
Virgin resin: New, unblended resin that has not been through a product before.
Rotational moulding: Resin heated in a rotating mould to make a hollow jointless part.
4-way entry: Forks or a jack can enter from all four sides.
2-way entry: Forks enter from two opposite sides only.
Captive pallet: A pallet owned and kept inside one company or loop.
One-way pallet: A cheaper pallet shipped with the load and not expected back.
Multi-trip pallet: A pallet designed to be returned and reused many times.
Structural foam: Low-pressure moulding where a blowing agent expands the resin in the mould.
Compression moulding: Moulding by pressing resin in a closed mould; one of six processes in use.
CP9: A chemical-industry pallet standard, 1140 x 1140 mm.
Resin identification code: Number on a plastic part for the resin, which does not itself say whether it is recyclable.
Regrind: Plastic ground from used or scrap parts into flakes for moulding again.
Recycled-content pallet: A pallet moulded partly or wholly from post-industrial or post-consumer resin.
Open deck: Top deck with gaps between slats or ribs; lighter and drains.

Who asks, and what they need

Plastic recyclers and pallet makers: Buy broken pallets by weight as HDPE or PP feedstock; want clean, sorted, separated by resin and colour.
Plants changing packaging or pallet size: Retire a whole stock of one footprint at once; want it sold or ground up, not landfilled.
Pharmaceutical and healthcare shippers: Hygienic pallets that can be sanitised; documents on resin and colour; PP sometimes preferred for sterilisation.

What the sources say

Greystone Logistics processed about 60 million pounds of recycled plastic in the year ended May 31, 2024, using damaged plastic pallets from a buy-back program among its feedstock. (resource-recycling.com)
Private employers in the US averaged 575,006 jobs across 12,344 establishments in plastics product manufacturing (NAICS 3261) in 2025 (BLS QCEW). States with the most jobs: Ohio (42,286), Texas (40,945), California (35,933), Pennsylvania (34,094), Indiana (33,122). (data.bls.gov)
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)
Private employers in the US averaged 316,938 jobs across 16,316 establishments in beverage manufacturing (NAICS 3121) in 2025 (BLS QCEW). States with the most jobs: California (63,604), Texas (24,154), New York (13,802), Pennsylvania (13,207), Florida (12,661). (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 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)
Private employers in the US averaged 288,633 jobs across 934 establishments in motor vehicle manufacturing (NAICS 3361) in 2025 (BLS QCEW). States with the most jobs: Michigan (44,870), Texas (28,069), California (27,690), Kentucky (23,308), Alabama (22,311). (data.bls.gov)
Private employers in the US averaged 521,212 jobs across 6,414 establishments in motor vehicle parts manufacturing (NAICS 3363) in 2025 (BLS QCEW). States with the most jobs: Michigan (111,465), Ohio (62,025), Indiana (52,146), Tennessee (38,791), Kentucky (32,261). (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 meat and poultry processing jobs (NAICS 3116) in 2025, BLS QCEW, counties with disclosed data only: Hall County, Georgia (11,123), Cook County, Illinois (8,367), Sussex County, Delaware (8,212), Marshall County, Alabama (7,387), Fresno County, California (6,499), Douglas County, Nebraska (6,452). (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)
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)
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)
Resin identification codes do not indicate whether a product is recyclable; ASTM D7611 governs the coding. (en.wikipedia.org)
Private employers in the US averaged 556,647 jobs across 4,689 establishments in meat and poultry processing (NAICS 3116) in 2025 (BLS QCEW). States with the most jobs: Texas (44,780), Georgia (42,030), North Carolina (35,715), Arkansas (34,773), Iowa (33,386). (data.bls.gov)
Private employers in the US averaged 168,222 jobs across 2,809 establishments in dairy product manufacturing (NAICS 3115) in 2025 (BLS QCEW). States with the most jobs: Wisconsin (28,840), California (18,374), New York (11,603), Ohio (8,963), Texas (7,529). (data.bls.gov)

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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.