A few times a year we get asked whether we buy pallets standalone — without an associated load of Gaylord boxes. The answer is yes, and the threshold is lower than people expect.
What we buy
- Used wood GMA 48x40 pallets, Grade A through C.
- Used plastic 48x40 pallets, sound condition.
- Mixed loads of wood and plastic.
- ISPM-15 stamped wood pallets at a premium.
- Custom-size wood pallets at lower volumes.
What we will not buy
- Pallets with multiple broken stringers (we will recycle them at the wood-mulch rate, but not at sellable-pallet pricing).
- Pallets contaminated with hazardous materials.
- Loose pallet boards, separated from intact pallets.
Volume thresholds
For wood pallets, our pickup threshold is about 100 pallets for a 40-mile radius dispatch. For plastic, the threshold is about 50 because the per-pallet value is higher.
For drop-offs at our yard, no minimum. Bring 10 pallets and we will pay you for 10 pallets, fair value.
Where the value comes from
Reclaimed pallets pair perfectly with the box programs we run. A Gaylord box on a sound used pallet is the default outbound configuration we ship. So the more sound used pallets we can put into circulation, the more of our box program we can serve without dipping into new-pallet inventory.
It is one of those quiet adjacencies that make the whole operation work. We buy boxes because we sell boxes. We buy pallets because we ship them under boxes. The flywheel is in the pairing.