A pallet's color is a label. Paint means a pallet belongs to someone who wants it back; bare wood usually means it's yours. Pallet pools paint their pallets so that strays can be spotted across a yard and returned. Ordinary pallets that are bought and sold outright are left unpainted.
What does a blue pallet mean?
In North America, a wood block pallet painted blue and stenciled with an owner's name is almost always a CHEP pallet. CHEP is the largest pallet pooling company, and its US collection page says it owns its pallets and never sells them. A blue pallet on your dock arrived under a manufacturer's rental, and it goes back through CHEP's own collection, listed in our return-channel directory.
What does a red pallet mean?
In the US and Canada, a red-painted block pallet is usually a PECO pallet. PECO's recovery page says its pallets are its property and asks anyone who finds even one or two to request a pickup. In Europe, red can also mean LPR (La Palette Rouge), another rental pool. Read the stencil: it names the owner.
What about other colors?
Some companies paint or stain their own pallets, or color the ends, to keep track of them in a closed loop. The color alone doesn't tell you who; the stencil does. If a painted pallet has no readable name, treat it as someone else's and ask the supplier that delivered it.
What does an unpainted pallet mean?
Bare, unpainted wood is the mark of a white-wood pallet, the ordinary kind that is sold with the load. With no owner stencil, it's yours to reuse, sell or recycle. It may carry a small square stamp with letters like HT; that's a treatment mark, not an owner's mark (see reading pallet stamps).
And plastic pallets?
Plastic pallets come both ways. A plastic pallet with a pool's name molded in, such as iGPS, is rented and goes back to its owner. A plain plastic pallet with no name, tag or "property of" mark was most likely sold outright.
The quick rule
| You see | It's probably | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Blue paint and a stencil | A CHEP rental pallet | Request CHEP's collection |
| Red paint and a stencil | PECO (North America) or LPR (Europe) | Request that owner's pickup |
| Other paint, or "property of" on bare wood | Someone else's pallet | Contact the company named |
| Bare wood, no owner mark | A white-wood pallet, yours | Sell or recycle it |
| Plastic, molded pool name | A plastic rental pallet | Contact that pool |
When the color and the stencil disagree, follow the stencil. The pallet identifier walks through the same checks one question at a time.