Broken wood pallets are repaired if the frame is sound, dismantled for usable boards if it isn't, and the rest is ground into wood chips. Very little of a clean wood pallet needs to go to landfill. Here's the path, step by step.
Step 1: Sorting
Everything starts with grading. Each pallet is sorted as reusable, repairable or scrap, and anything painted or stenciled by a rental pool is set aside for its owner. Sorting at the dock, before loading, keeps repairable pallets from being lost in the scrap and keeps pooled pallets out of the grinder.
Step 2: Repair
A pallet with a sound frame and one or two broken deck boards is repaired. The damaged boards are cut away and replaced with reclaimed boards of the same size. A cracked stringer can be reinforced with a metal plate, or a shorter "companion" stringer is nailed alongside it. The result goes back into use as a Grade B pallet.
Step 3: Dismantling
Pallets that aren't worth repairing are taken apart. A dismantling machine runs a band saw blade between the deck boards and the stringers or blocks, cutting the nails so the boards come off whole. Good boards are sorted by length and become repair stock, or are cut down for smaller pallets and crates.
Step 4: Grinding
What's left (split boards, broken blocks, short offcuts) goes through a grinder. Magnets pull out the nails and staples, which are sold as scrap steel. The wood chips go to:
- Landscape mulch, often colored.
- Animal bedding, from clean, dry wood.
- Biomass fuel for boilers and power plants.
- Compost, as a bulking agent.
What can't be recycled this way?
Wood contaminated with chemicals or oil, pallets wrapped in plastic or foam that hasn't been stripped, and anything burnt or badly rotten. Tell the collector about spills so that wood is kept separate. Heat-treated (HT) pallets recycle like any other wood; see reading pallet stamps.
Why not just burn them on site?
Burning wastes reusable wood, often breaks local rules on open burning, and a rental pallet in the fire is someone else's property destroyed. A scheduled pickup is cheaper than it sounds once the reusable pallets in the pile are counted.
How to send yours
Count roughly: sound, repairable, broken, and any rental pallets. The pile planner turns that into a plan and a pickup request. More on the service: pallet recycling.