Recycling pallets is not just good for your business, it is good for the environment as well. The financial resources saved in your recycling efforts are matched by the waste you save from over-taxed waste management facilities. Pallet recycling also has other benefits, it keeps your business in the black, it allows you to remain compliant with local environmental authorities, and allows you to maintain a green business.
At Verde Trader, we buy used wooden pallets from all kinds of industries and refurbish them to be useful yet again. If you would like to earn more about our objectives in recycling pallets, you can visit our Environmental Policy page.
Beyond the costs of saving, there are many other tangible reasons to recycle your pallets. Here are some of the top reasons an environmentally responsible company such as your own should consider recycling pallets when they reach the end of their service life.
1. Reduce landfill
Old pallets that are beginning to show visible signs of damage are often thrown out, but this is not the best course of action. Old worn pallets are not structurally sound and could be a threat to your stored goods. They can also cause injuries if they break in transport or on daily use. It always pays to have a plan for keeping your pallets safe from damage and in prime conditions.
Sadly, it is estimated that roughly 13% of all landfill is made up of timber, much of which can still be used. This means that about 140,000 tonnes of timber pallets will annually end in a landfill in Sydney alone. Rather than wasting all these good materials, used pallets can be transformed into something useful.
Used pallets can be turned into:
Animal bedding
Mulches
Biofuel and biofilters
Building products
There are plenty of profitable ways to use those old pallets that will keep them out of the landfill.
2. Less logging
Less discarded pallets mean more recycled wood, this means that pressures on the logging industry can be lifted by responsible pallet recycling. Trees are a valuable resource in Australia and the world. Furthermore, they are under constant threat. Between 2019 and 2020, 1.2 million hectares of bushland burned in Victoria alone. But this wanton destruction is only matched by the logging industry destroying as much as 8.86 hectares of bushland each day.
We can take this strain off our national bushlands by recycling used pallets.
3. Lower your business’s carbon footprint
A lot of energy goes into harvesting materials and creating shipping pallets all across the globe. From their extensive use in shipping by land, sea, and air, it is easy to see the great contribution the shipping pallet makes to greenhouse gas emissions globally. And all this takes place before the pallets even arrive at their final destination.
Just like our valued native trees, each carbon pallet represents a quantity of carbon sequestered within its materials. Rather than discarding these, they can be sent to our facilities for refurbishment and reapplied in various ways throughout the modern industry.
4. Recycled pallets can be used in the home
Recycling pallets means providing more care to these valuable materials than just throwing them away. Reclaimed timber found in a pallet can have plenty of domestic use. Pallets can be used to create furniture, mend fences, build shelves, and do plenty of other purposes. Using pallets around the home can cut back on the advance of consumerism.
Recycled pallet timber can be used to create:
Shelves for books, storage, pictures, and decor
Doors, gates, and fences
Tables and chairs for indoor and outdoor use
Storage chests, wine racks, and planter boxes.
Bedroom furniture
There is an entire internet community dedicated to educating the public on the extensive value of using pallets in the home.
5. Recycling Pallets Means Fewer Plastics
With more timber from pallets being used today, the less need there will be for plastics. Plastic pallets have been in use for many years and are specially designed for specific purposes. But they are also a more cost-effective plan than purchasing new timber pallets — at Verde Trader, we are offering an alternative for saving your budget from the high costs of new pallets by recycling old used pallets.
Through our recycling efforts, we ensure that:
500 tonnes of recycled timber is used for making new pallets
6,000 pallets weekly are saved from landfills and refurbished for new uses
Excess timber created in the process is turned into mulch