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plastic resin, which can be reused to
make recycled plastic pallets (although
the quality is not as high as it is with new
ones) or other plastic products.
That said, potential plastic pallet
users must weigh the environmental
costs of simply manufacturing plastic.
Unlike wood or cardboard, plastic pallets are typically made from high-density
polyethylene or polypropylene, which
requires nonrenewable resources such as
oil or natural gas to produce.
Finally, for plastic pallets to be truly
sustainable (not just environmentally
but also economically), companies either
need to use a pooler or have some way
of guaranteeing that they can get their
pallets back.
ALUMINUM REINCARNATION
The weight of most metal pallets makes
them unsuitable for many applications.
Aluminum pallets, however, weigh on
average less than 40 pounds, and aluminum pallet companies like to tout their
environmental benefits.
To be sure, the environmental cost of
producing aluminum is high. For start-ers, the raw material, bauxite, must be
mined from the earth. On top of that,
processing and manufacturing aluminum consumes a great deal of energy.
However, once it is produced, aluminum is “infinitely recyclable,” in the
words of Peter Johnson, president of
Eco Aluminum Pallets. And unlike the
situation with plastic, the recycling process does not degrade the quality of
aluminum. So one way to lessen the
pallets’ environmental impact is to use
pallets made out of recycled aluminum.
Recycled aluminum is readily available,
and Johnson has no concerns about the
supply’s decreasing.
Aluminum pallets are also durable.
Eco Aluminum Pallets, for example,
guarantees its pallets for 10 years. While
the majority of metal pallets are nonrepairable, Eco Aluminum Pallets has created a repairable version that is riveted
together.
Aluminum pallets are not for every-
one, however. They are best suited for
closed-loop or captive environments,
of the pallet and runs little risk of losing
a valuable asset.
THE THREE Rs
If you take a close look at each type of
pallet, you’ll see that there are pluses and
minuses for each in terms of sustainability. The best advice might be to evaluate
which type of pallet makes the most
sense for your operation and product.
It might be that a change could benefit
your particular operation.
But no matter what type of pallet they
use, most companies could benefit from
thinking about their pallets in terms of
the three Rs: reduce, reuse, and recycle.
Companies can start by asking themselves whether there are ways they can
reduce the number of pallets they use.
save big money,” DC VELOCITY, March
