Product · Plastic
Plastic pallets, sold by people who prefer wood
There are jobs wood cannot do properly. Washdown environments, pharmaceutical loops and closed-loop automation are three of them.
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RePallet Co. supplies reconditioned and new plastic pallets — nestable, stackable, rackable and hygienic models — alongside its wooden range. Reconditioned units typically run $18–$55; new models $45–$160 depending on style and resin.
Plastic makes sense in closed loops with washdown requirements, strict hygiene regimes or automated systems needing dimensional consistency. For open-loop shipping it is usually the more expensive mistake.
Styles and what they are for
Nestable
Stack inside each other when empty — up to 4:1 return-freight saving. Light duty, best for one-way and export where return volume is the problem.
Stackable (open deck)
Rigid perimeter base, stacks squarely when loaded. The general-purpose plastic pallet for internal movement.
Rackable
Reinforced, often with steel inserts, rated for beam racking. Check the unsupported-span rating, not just the static load.
Hygienic / solid deck
Smooth closed surfaces with no cavities. Washdown, food processing, cleanroom and pharmaceutical use.
Export / one-way
Thin-wall economy units. ISPM 15 does not apply to plastic at all, which is often the whole point.
Display and half
Retail-facing formats in moulded colour, usually specified with branding.
The honest comparison
We sell both, so here is the version without a thumb on the scale. The decisive variable is almost always whether you get the pallet back.
| Recycled wood | Plastic | |
|---|---|---|
| Unit cost | $5.50 – $13.50 | $18 – $160 |
| Weight, 48x40 | 33 – 40 lb | 15 – 45 lb |
| Repairable | Yes, cheaply | Rarely; usually terminal |
| Hygiene | Porous; cannot be sterilised | Washable, sterilisable |
| Dimensional consistency | ±10 mm typical | ±2 mm |
| Cold-chain behaviour | Good | Some resins embrittle below −20 °C |
| ISPM 15 | Required | Exempt |
| End of life | Repair, reuse, mulch | Grind and re-mould, if a route exists |
| Best case | Open-loop shipping | Closed loops with washdown |
The carbon comparison is genuinely close and depends entirely on trip count — a plastic pallet needs a lot of circuits to repay its moulding energy. The long version, with the break-even arithmetic, is on wood vs plastic pallets.
Buying reconditioned
A plastic pallet that has not cracked is essentially as good as new, which makes the reconditioned market unusually attractive. We buy, wash, inspect and re-sell — and we reject a lot, because a hairline crack in a rackable pallet is a genuine safety issue rather than a cosmetic one.
- Pressure-washed and dried before inspection
- Checked for stress cracking at the corner posts and fork entries
- Steel-reinforced models tested for insert integrity
- Rejected units go to a resin recycler, never to landfill
- Sold with the original manufacturer's model reference wherever it is legible
Resins, and why the label matters
“Plastic pallet” covers materials with very different behaviour. The resin decides cold-chain performance, chemical resistance, stiffness and what happens at end of life.
| Resin | Cold limit | Stiffness | Chemical resistance | Typical use |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HDPE (high-density polyethylene) | ≈ −29 °C | Moderate | Very good | General purpose, freezer |
| PP (polypropylene) | ≈ −10 °C | Higher | Good | Ambient, hygienic, autoclave |
| PP copolymer | ≈ −20 °C | High | Good | Cold chain compromise |
| Recycled HDPE / PP blend | Varies | Varies | Varies | Economy; check the spec |
| Glass-reinforced | Varies | Very high | Good | Rackable heavy duty |
| Steel-reinforced composite | Varies | Highest | Good | Unsupported-span racking |
Inspecting a used plastic pallet
A plastic pallet that has not cracked is essentially as good as new, which makes the reconditioned market attractive — and makes inspection the entire game. We reject a lot, because a hairline crack in a rackable pallet is a safety issue rather than a cosmetic one.
- 1
Wash and dry first
You cannot see a stress crack through a film of dirt. Everything is pressure-washed before it is inspected.
- 2
Corner posts
The highest-stress area. Look for star cracks radiating from the moulding and for whitening, which indicates the polymer has yielded.
- 3
Fork entry edges
Impact damage concentrates here. Deformation without cracking is usually acceptable; cracking is not.
- 4
Deck flex
Load it and watch. Excessive or asymmetric flex means the internal ribbing has failed even if the surface looks fine.
- 5
Reinforcement
On steel-reinforced units, check the insert ends have not pulled through.
- 6
Moulded markings
Model number, resin code and load rating are moulded into the underside. If they are legible we quote precisely; if not we quote conservatively.
Whitening is the tell
Polyethylene and polypropylene go pale where they have been stressed past their elastic limit. A whitened corner post on an otherwise clean pallet has already yielded once and will fail there. It is the single most reliable indicator on a used plastic pallet and it takes a second to spot.
End of life, and the honest gap
This is where the plastic case is weakest, and we would rather say so than let a customer discover it in five years.
A wooden pallet has a mature, liquid, local end-of-life market: repair, reuse, reclaimed lumber, mulch. Our own yard is that market. A plastic pallet has a theoretical end-of-life route — regrind into new resin — which in practice depends on whether a processor near you will take the specific resin in the volumes you produce, uncontaminated.
- Ask your supplier what happens at end of life, specifically, by name.
- Mixed-resin loads are hard to place. Standardising on one resin makes the end-of-life route far more likely to exist.
- Contamination kills it. Labels, steel inserts and product residue all reduce the value of regrind.
- Volume matters. A processor wants a trailer, not a pallet of pallets.
- We take sound units back at a fair price and route cracked ones to a resin recycler rather than to landfill — and we name the route in the batch record.
None of this makes plastic the wrong answer. It makes it an answer whose full lifecycle you should plan rather than assume, in the way that wood — because of yards like ours — mostly does not require you to.
Questions people actually ask
Do plastic pallets need ISPM 15 treatment?
Can plastic pallets be repaired?
Are they safe in a freezer?
Do you buy used plastic pallets?
Are plastic pallets heavier or lighter than wood?
Can plastic pallets be used outdoors?
Do they work in automated systems?
What about static electricity?
Can you supply a mix of wood and plastic?
Let's keep your pallets in the loop
Whether you have 40 broken cores behind the dock or need 4,000 Grade A pallets a month, the conversation starts the same way.