We see a lot of pallets in our job; it’s to be expected really, but we probably overlook them these days and don’t put a lot of thought into where pallets come from and how they can be recycled and/or reused moving forward.
Did you know?
- 4-5 Billion Feet of Lumber go into making Pallets, but the wood used is a by-product from the construction industry.
- That means that they are made from the wood that has been deemed unsuitable for the use in housing and furniture, making them eco-friendly from the outset as otherwise this wood would most likely go to waste.
- Whilst there are no good reasons that pallets in good condition can’t be reused or recycled, broken pallets that have come to the end of their lifecycle are often just “thrown away” – 150 million pallets will end up in landfill every year!
- To put that in proportion, demolition waste and municipal wood waste roughly total the same amount of waste in metric tons to that of pallets and wooden packaging – 1mt per year for each industry.
- Of this waste, pallets are classed as “Grade A” – the easiest (and cheapest) of wood waste to recycle, as they are untreated (“clean”) and easy to handle, thus reducing labour costs in shifting them around a site.
- Municipal waste is the lowest quality (“Grade C/D”), as it is often painted or treated with preservatives such as broken fences, sheds or furniture. This type of wood requires disposal at specialised facilities due to the chemicals used on the wood that has been treated. Any untreated municipal waste may be used for fuel (“Grade C”).
With all this in mind, it’s amazing how many pallets are thrown away as opposed to being properly recycled or reused. Whilst there has been a massive increase in the amount of waste wood overall that is recycled when compared to 30 years ago (a measly 2% or less in 1992), we’re still seeing pallets go down the landfill route more than the recycling one.
Although pallets have become more popular with the domestic market of late (often used as furniture, garden ornaments or similar), there is still a huge disparity in the proportion of broken pallets that are simply sent to landfill. This is made worse by the fact that pallets are so easy to recycle and are classed as “clean” Grade A wood waste – the cream of the crop! This type of waste is untreated and can be recycled into animal bedding and mulches, amongst other things.
How many pallets?
150 million pallets roughly equate to the same height as 975, 000, 000”, or 24, 750km. If you think these many pallets are sent to landfill each year, then this number of pallets stacked end on end would equal to:
- 29,891 x Burj Khalifa (largest skyscraper in the world)
- 60 x further away from the planet into space than the International Space Station
- 4 x further than the distance to the centre of the earth
….it’s a big pile of pallets!
