According to the people who make plastic pallets, they are better that wooden ones in almost every way.
Plastic pallet has many advantages compared with wooden one as follows: less weight, neat and good appearance, no nails or splinters, no odour,no poison, impervious to acids & alkalis, no sparkles, explosion proof, skidproof, high value in return use. Its original dimension, rigidity and impact strength will last for many years.
As is well known to us, it is dangerous to operate with wooden pallets. Plastic pallet guarantees security for a long period. It is suitable for food, aquatic products, health, chemicals, apparel, shoes, electronics & electrical, rubber, fertilizer, feedstuff, port, and so on. It has become a good assistance in storage and transition and ideal packing container for factory and enterprise.
I spent a good chunk of my working life around wooden pallets and I have to concede a few of the points made by the makers of plastic pallets. They don’t last forever and sometimes a person ahead of you in the supply chain decides to try to get one more use out of a pallet that should have been diverted to salvage from their place of business.
I still prefer wood because it comes from a renewable resource and it is biodegradable. Companies have the option of using FSC certified wooden pallets. Of course, I am not in a position to decide what kind of pallet is used to cart my consumer goods around the world.
The coffee roastery where I worked in 2004-2005 gave away worn out pallets to a local person who built boxes for apple harvesting. While I was working there we made some major changes to our supply logistics and started receiving green coffee in full containers with no pallets. I made a custom order at a local pallet maker for large, heavy hardwood pallets for our new warehouse.
I will be keeping my eye out for plastic pallets on the beaches in the future.
October 30th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
I don’t feel that plastic pallets are better than wood. It is my understanding that a fire retardant chemical has to be put on them. If that pallet is then used to display food in a grocery store for example, then that chemical will leach into the food. That would never be an issue with a wooden pallet.