For many busy warehouses, used pallets can get in the way. By taking up valuable space, not only does they get in the way of productivity, they can cause trip hazards, fire hazards and other safety issues. Whether they’re stored inside or outside of the facility.
Warehousing, depots and logistic centres are busier than ever in 2021. The UK market is booming. Fuelled by COVID, the acceleration of the shift to online retail has been exaggerated exponentially. Reports suggest that online retail sales have grown from 18.1% to 26.1% of total retail sales, which is set to increase furthermore in 2021.
All of this means busier workplaces, more people, more product, more vehicles and more pallets.
If your company turns over more than £2m and produces more than 50 tonnes of packaging, then you also have a legal requirement to comply with the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Package Waste) Regulations. To check if you’re an obligated packaging producer, visit the government website: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/packaging-producer-responsibilities#check-if-youre-an-obligated-packaging-producer
Donating your pallets
If your facility doesn’t have a large number of pallets, there are lot of free options you could consider. The first is to donate the used pallets to local businesses and households, who can re-use the pallets for their own purposes, such as DIY, gardening or even for storage. Of course, the challenge for you is to make people aware – you could possibly end up with a growing pile over time, despite your best efforts to donate.
Skip hire
Some companies hire skips to collect their pallet waste. Once filled, the skip provider will remove the pallets and return the skip. This is often an expensive way to manage your pallet waste. Skip hire can be very expensive and general sized skips don’t contain large quantities, which results in many more collections than a specialist pallet waste collection provider. What’s more, for companies with a CSR policy, there isn’t necessarily the track and trace of what happens to the pallet next, and the assurance that it is recycled or reused. The pallets could end up in landfill.
Pallet collection service
When your company is dealing with large quantities of pallets, the most cost-effective and environmentally-friendly option is to use a pallet recycling service. This option usually involves the long-term hire of the bin and regular collections from the pallet company. This ensures all of your pallets are recycled as the pallet collection company will responsibly recycle each pallet, either by restoring and reusing it, or by breaking it down to be re-made.
TIPCI full loop pallet recycling
At TIPCI Group we provide extra deep pallet collection bins; cleverly designed to save floor space but take on more pallets than a standard pallet collection bin. This saves our customers a lot of time, money and effort as the larger bins result in less frequent collections, saving costs and keeping the site productive and organised.
At TIPCI group, many of our customers use the pallet collection service to fully close the loop on their pallet trading. They both buy the pallets from TIPCI Group and use the collection service, which ensures a responsible, organised and efficient disposal of wood. Not only this, but they benefit from the cost savings involved from using TIPCI Group for the full service as it enables TIPCI to give the customer a turn- key solution at a very competitive price.
If you’d like a quote for recycling your pallets, or to find out more, please get in touch.
One response
[…] Space is premium and as the warehousing and logistics sector gets busier, pallets can become a real nuisance to businesses. If you use a lot of pallets, then a pallet waste management and collection service is probably best for you. You may also wish to read about the different ways to get rid of your pallets […]