Pallet recycling

Testing the waters in another area. Too much on my plate already, but what the heck.

I have a resort that I already get Ewaste from. They have about 70 pallets and get 15 to 20 a week. I have someone near me that picks them up, fixes what can be fixed and resells grade A and grade B pallets. Sounds like I can sell him unbroken ones for a couple of bucks a piece. It's not much money, but the resort is on my way home from work and his shop is right down the road. It also gives me access to pallets for my other recycling.

Originally Posted by mthomasdev

Testing the waters in another area. Too much on my plate already, but what the heck.

I have a resort that I already get Ewaste from. They have about 70 pallets and get 15 to 20 a week. I have someone near me that picks them up, fixes what can be fixed and resells grade A and grade B pallets. Sounds like I can sell him unbroken ones for a couple of bucks a piece. It's not much money, but the resort is on my way home from work and his shop is right down the road. It also gives me access to pallets for my other recycling.

I dropped off 2 small loads today. 41 pallets in all. I'm getting paid for 29 unbroken pallets. Of the 12 remaining, 2 were a non-standard size (only deals in 40" x 48"). 1 was broken beyond repair. 9 were broken, but repairable. Looks like this will be a decent little regular pickup. Should be able to make an extra grand a year, picking up stuff on the way home from work. Once I get thru the initial pile and have a complete understanding of what is good, I'll start keeping some of the bad ones and either use them myself or possibly fix them. Not sure if $2 is worth it if I need to fix them, but we will see.

Originally Posted by hobo finds

I assume he takes the ones that need repair for free? If so you may as well just let them go to him, unless you have a few screws or nails to make a quick fix. Do you need to remove all pallets from the resort or will they let you be picky? I would probably take them all and dispose of the bad ones so they are getting a service from you...

I don't get paid for broken ones. As you said, I may just keep giving them to him.

As far as the resort, I have to take all of them.

When I priced buying/selling pallets, $2 seemed to be the going rate.

Around here I get either $2 or $2.50. Is one place pays $3 for some but it's not worth the drive with my capacity

I was going through the used pallets at work today. We ship cardboard bales that weigh anywhere from 800 - 1200 lbs. We need something decent to bear all that weight. The thing i was looking for was a standard size hardwood pallet that was in good shape.

The next thing was a hardwood pallet that had broken slats but could be repaired. They're easy to fix. Just take a sawzall with a fine tooth metal cutting blade and cut the nails. The slat pops right off. Take a slat from a donor pallet and nail it on with a nail gun that shoots the thin shank fencing nail.

The badly broken ones where one or more of the three joists are broken go off to the burn pile at the dump. Same with any of the softwood pallets.

A brand new HT hardwood pallet goes for 25.00$ or more. Used ones are worth around 7.50 $

Just for the heck of it you might check out some of the warehouses that do a lot of shipping & receiving. You might find a buyer there. There are a couple on rt 91 and another on rt 90. Whole bunch on the South Shore around Boston but that's a longer drive.

Might be a winner if you find a couple that would buy from you on a regular basis ?

Originally Posted by hills

I was going through the used pallets at work today. We ship cardboard bales that weigh anywhere from 800 - 1200 lbs. We need something decent to bear all that weight. The thing i was looking for was a standard size hardwood pallet that was in good shape.

The next thing was a hardwood pallet that had broken slats but could be repaired. They're easy to fix. Just take a sawzall with a fine tooth metal cutting blade and cut the nails. The slat pops right off. Take a slat from a donor pallet and nail it on with a nail gun that shoots the thin shank fencing nail.

The badly broken ones where one or more of the three joists are broken go off to the burn pile at the dump. Same with any of the softwood pallets.

A brand new HT hardwood pallet goes for 25.00$ or more. Used ones are worth around 7.50 $

Just for the heck of it you might check out some of the warehouses that do a lot of shipping & receiving. You might find a buyer there. There are a couple on rt 91 and another on rt 90. Whole bunch on the South Shore around Boston but that's a longer drive.

Might be a winner if you find a couple that would buy from you on a regular basis ?

Thank you for the advice. I'm going to stick with my buyer for the foreseeable future. He is literally on the same road as me, probably less than a half mile away. I don't have the time or a large enough trailer to consider selling to others.