01
Accepting a 100% diversion claim
It means either energy recovery is being counted as recycling, or the counting is not careful.
FixAsk three questions: by weight or count, is energy recovery included, and what is the residual made of.
01The five-tier hierarchy we work down
- Reuse as-is. The best outcome by a wide margin. Roughly 41% of intake needs nothing but a grade and a wash of the top face.
- Repair. Replace boards, add companion stringers, plug notches. About 34% of intake. A 90-second operation that returns a pallet to years of service.
- Remanufacture. Dismantle and rebuild from recovered components into a different size or spec. About 11%. This is where odd sizes come from without cutting a tree.
- Fibre recovery. Grind to mulch, animal bedding, or engineered wood feedstock. About 6%.
- Energy recovery. Biomass fuel, last resort before landfill. Under 1%.
The remaining ~8% is genuine waste: contaminated wood, embedded metal beyond economic extraction, and material that fails safety screening. We report that honestly rather than rounding it into a nicer number.
- Reused as-is
- 41%Reused as-is
- Repaired and returned
- 34%Repaired and returned
- Remanufactured or recovered as fibre
- 17%Remanufactured or recovered as fibre
02Why wood recycling actually matters
Wood pallets are the largest single category of wood entering the municipal waste stream in the United States. When wood landfills, it decomposes anaerobically and generates methane — a greenhouse gas roughly 28 times more potent than CO₂ over a hundred-year horizon. Recovery avoids that emission entirely and displaces the emissions of building a replacement.
| Outcome | Approx. CO₂e per pallet | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Landfilled | +9 to +14 kg | Anaerobic decomposition, methane release |
| Built new from virgin lumber | +11 to +18 kg | Harvest, mill, transport, assemble |
| Repaired and reused | +0.9 to +1.6 kg | Transport and a handful of boards |
| Reused as-is | +0.4 to +0.8 kg | Transport and handling only |
| Ground to mulch | +1.1 to +2.0 kg | Processing energy, carbon stays sequestered |
03What you get on paper
- Quarterly diversion report: tonnage in, outcome split, tonnage landfilled.
- Estimated CO₂e avoided, with the methodology stated so your auditor can check it.
- Weigh tickets for every collection, retained seven years.
- Certificate of recycling for sites that need one for a customer or a regulator.
- Data in a format that drops into GRI, CDP or a corporate ESG disclosure without re-keying.
By the numbers
The figures worth remembering
Four numbers that decide most of what follows on this page.
- Of intake diverted from landfill
- 92%Of intake diverted from landfill
- Of intake reused rather than ground
- 75%Of intake reused rather than ground
- Residual we report rather than round away
- 8%Residual we report rather than round away
- Weigh tickets retained
- 7 yrWeigh tickets retained
Rules of thumb
Carry these in your head
- 01Reuse beats recycling. It also avoids the replacement being built.
- 02Wood in landfill generates methane — about 28 times more potent than CO₂ over a century.
- 03Every gram of metal comes out before grinding, in two magnetic passes.
- 04A defensible 92% is worth more than an indefensible 99%.
Before you order
The decisions we will ask you to make
A quote turnaround is limited by how many follow-up questions we have to ask. Working through this list removes nearly all of them.
- 01
What the reporting must satisfy
An internal target, a customer requirement or a formal disclosure. Each needs a different level of evidence.
- 02
Measurement boundary
Does the rate count everything that arrives, including rejected loads? Ours does.
- 03
Energy recovery treatment
Ask whether it is counted as recycling. Combining the two inflates a headline.
- 04
Reuse versus recycling split
Two operations can report the same diversion rate and be doing environmentally different things.
- 05
Contamination screening
Chemical residue changes the route entirely and cannot enter the fibre stream.
- 06
Reporting cadence
Quarterly is standard. Monthly is possible where a customer requires it.
What goes wrong
Expensive mistakes, and the fix for each
Every one of these turns up in ordinary purchase orders. All of them cost multiples of whatever they appeared to save.
02
Reporting count instead of weight
Counting pallets hides the fact that the heaviest, wettest, most contaminated material is the most likely to be landfilled.
FixReport by weight, reconciled to weighbridge tickets.
03
Presenting estimates as measurements
Tonnage is measured. Emissions factors are estimated. Auditors want that boundary drawn explicitly.
FixSeparate the two in every report and state the methodology.
Side by side
Where the carbon goes
| Outcome | Approx. CO₂e per pallet | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Landfilled | +9 to +14 kg | Anaerobic decomposition, methane release |
| Built new from virgin lumber | +11 to +18 kg | Harvest, mill, transport, assemble |
| Repaired and reused | +0.9 to +1.6 kg | Transport and a handful of boards |
| Reused as-is | +0.4 to +0.8 kg | Transport and handling only |
| Ground to mulch | +1.1 to +2.0 kg | Processing energy, carbon stays sequestered |
Against our interest
When this is the wrong answer
We would rather lose the order than sell you the wrong thing. These are the situations where this page is not what you need.
- 01
Operations wanting a headline number rather than a measured one
We report 92%, not 100%, and we publish what the residual is made of. If a rounder figure is the requirement, another supplier will provide it.
- 02
Single small collections with no repeat
The reporting overhead only makes sense against a recurring flow. A one-off pickup is a removal job, not a programme.
- 03
Wood with unidentified chemical residue
It cannot enter the fibre stream. It goes to controlled disposal, and it counts against the diversion rate rather than being quietly excluded.
What moves the price
Cost drivers, and roughly how much each one is worth
A quote is not a list price with a discount applied. It is these variables added up, which is why two quotes for nominally the same thing can differ so widely.
| Driver | What it is | Rough effect |
|---|---|---|
| Recoverable share of the load | A load with a healthy proportion of 48x40 stock pays; a load of broken odd sizes on a remote site does not. | Net payment to net charge |
| Contamination screening | Loads needing manual screening cost more to process. | Handling time |
| Route density | Scheduled collection against on-call despatch. | 30–45% per unit |
| Reporting depth | Quarterly summary against monthly, audit-ready reporting. | Administrative, usually absorbed |
Due diligence
Questions to ask any supplier
Us included. The answers tell you a great deal, and so does how quickly they arrive — a yard that has these documents ready is a yard that has thought about them.
- 01
“Is your diversion rate by weight or by count?”
- 02
“Is energy recovery counted inside the recycling figure?”
- 03
“What proportion of intake is reused rather than ground?”
- 04
“What is your residual made of, and how is it disposed of?”
- 05
“Does reported tonnage reconcile to weighbridge tickets, and are they retained?”
- 06
“Will the reporting separate measured tonnage from estimated emissions?”
The rulebook
Standards and authorities that actually apply
Plenty of pallet marketing invokes standards loosely. These are the real documents behind this subject, and what each one does and does not cover.
- GRI 306 (Waste)
The Global Reporting Initiative disclosure on waste, including diversion from disposal. The structure most corporate reports follow.
- CDP disclosure
Where avoided emissions and waste figures are commonly reported. Requires methodology to be stated.
- EPA WARM model
The US Environmental Protection Agency's Waste Reduction Model, a common reference for landfill and recycling emissions factors.
- ISO 14001
Environmental management systems. Not a diversion standard, but the framework many customers operate their targets inside.
Vocabulary
The terms used on this page
Defined the way the trade uses them, not the way a dictionary would.
- Core
- An as-collected used pallet — unsorted, unrepaired and ungraded. Raw material rather than a product, and priced accordingly.
- Remanufactured pallet
- A pallet rebuilt from recovered components, often to a different size than the original. Distinct from a repaired pallet.
- Grade C
- Structurally sound but cosmetically rough. Suitable for floor-stacked storage and one-way freight; never for racking.
- Companion stringeralso: Sister stringer
- A second stringer nailed alongside a cracked original during repair. Structurally sound, adds 3–5 lb, and disqualifies a pallet from Grade A.
From the journal
Longer reading on this subject
Written by the people who grade, repair and haul the wood — including the articles that argue against buying from us.
Sustainability8 min readLena Brandt
Carbon accounting for pallets without lying to yourself
Most pallet carbon claims are directionally right and quantitatively invented. Here are the factors we use, where they come from, and the uncertainty attached to each.
Read
- carbon
- ESG
- reporting
Sustainability7 min readLena Brandt
What a 92% diversion rate actually measures
Any number you cannot interrogate is a marketing claim. Here is exactly how ours is built, including the part that does not flatter us.
Read
- diversion
- reporting
- ESG
Sustainability8 min readLena Brandt
What actually happens to a pallet after it leaves your dock
Most people who sell us pallets have never seen what happens next. It is a five-tier hierarchy, and about 41% of everything we collect never needs a repair at all.
Read
- recycling
- circular economy
- diversion
Questions
Answers to what buyers actually ask
Straight answers, including the ones that cost us the sale.
What percentage of a pallet can actually be recycled?
By weight, about 92% of what enters our yard is diverted from landfill across all five outcome tiers. For an individual sound pallet the figure is effectively 100% — it either goes back into service or becomes fibre. The residual comes from contaminated and metal-laden material.
Do you charge for pallet recycling?
It depends on the mix. Loads with a healthy proportion of recoverable 48x40 stock usually generate a payment to you. Loads that are mostly broken odd sizes may carry a modest haul charge. We quote the net position before the truck moves, so there are no surprises.
Can you recycle plastic pallets too?
Yes. Damaged HDPE and PP pallets are bought by weight and sent for grinding and re-moulding. Plastic pallets are entirely recyclable and should never see a landfill, but they need a different route than wood.
What happens to nails and metal?
Extracted magnetically during grinding and sold as scrap steel. It is a small revenue line and a large quality issue — metal in mulch is unacceptable to every downstream buyer, so the separation has to be thorough.
Will the reporting satisfy an ESG audit?
It is built for that. Reports state methodology, cite weigh-ticket evidence, and separate measured tonnage from estimated emissions factors. Auditors generally want to see the boundary between measurement and estimate drawn clearly, and ours is.