A zero-landfill claim is only as good as its account of the worst material. Ours is this: after reuse, repair and the build shop have taken what they can, roughly two percent of intake goes to the grinder. That wood has three possible destinations and we prefer them in a specific order.
Step one: metal out
Nothing goes into the grinder without passing a magnet, and the fiber passes a second magnetic separation on the way out. Pallet nails are the single biggest contaminant in recycled wood fiber, and a landscape supplier will reject an entire load for a handful of them.
The recovered steel goes to a local scrap processor. It is a small revenue stream and a non-negotiable quality step.
Destination one: landscape mulch
Our preferred outlet. Ground, screened to size and sold to landscapers and garden centres. Hardwood mulch from pallet stock is dense, long-lasting and — importantly — made from untreated wood, because chemically treated timber never enters our reuse stream in the first place.
Coloured mulch is a separate market we deliberately stay out of; the dyes are fine but they complicate the supply chain more than the margin justifies.
Destination two: animal bedding
Finer screening produces bedding for livestock and poultry. It is a demanding customer: moisture content, particle size and absolute freedom from treated wood all matter. Agricultural customers in our region take a steady volume and they inspect carefully, which keeps our screening honest.
Destination three: boiler-grade chip
Last on the list. Material that fails the mulch and bedding screens goes for thermal use at industrial boilers. It is genuinely useful — it displaces fossil fuel — but it is a one-time release of the carbon stored in that wood, which is why it sits at the bottom of our preference order.
- Reuse: the wood stays wood and keeps its stored carbon. Best by a wide margin.
- Repurpose: collars, crates, furniture. Stored carbon retained, structure changed.
- Mulch and bedding: carbon released slowly, material still doing work.
- Thermal: carbon released at once. Better than landfill, worse than everything above.
- Landfill: never. It is not on our list at all.
Why the order is the whole argument
Any yard with a grinder can claim a 100% diversion rate. The number that actually matters is how much of the intake leaves as a pallet rather than as chips. Ours is 94%, and we would rather be judged on that figure than on the diversion percentage, which is the easy one.
Written at the Meeks Blvd yard, St. Louis, and published on June 11, 2024. Markets and specifications move; if a figure here no longer matches what you are seeing, tell us and we will update it. Our model constants live on the Carbon Ledger.
How this was written
Drafted at the grading line from our own weighbridge records, line notes and customer correspondence. Figures quoted as ours are measured; figures quoted from the wider industry are labelled as estimates. Nothing here was written to rank for a search term, and we correct articles rather than quietly deleting them.
- Author
- Yard desk
- Published
- June 11, 2024
- Category
- Sustainability
- Reviewed
- Annually, with the model constants
- Corrections to
- sales@repalletshop.com
What to do with this
- Check the figures against your own invoices before acting on them.
- Ask us for the underlying scale tickets if you need audit evidence.
- Send the article to whoever owns your pallet spec — most of this is their decision.
- Disagree in writing. Several of these pieces exist because a customer corrected us.
How to cite
Yard desk, “Mulch, bedding and boiler fuel: what happens at the end”, Repallet Shop, June 11, 2024. repalletshop.com/blog/mulch-bedding-boiler-fuel