We keep grading notes because our graders have always written down why a pallet was downgraded. Sixteen years of those notes, plus two years of Passport records, let us say something reasonably concrete about how long a hardwood pallet actually lasts in regional distribution.
The headline numbers
A deck that enters our reuse stream serves a mean of 4.7 further lives, where a life is one dispatch-to-return cycle. The median is four; the distribution has a long right tail, with a meaningful number reaching eight or nine and a handful — the ones our graders remember personally — going well beyond.
At 11.6 kg of net avoided CO₂e per reuse cycle, 4.7 lives is about 55 kg per deck. That is the single number we are proudest of, and it is a measured average rather than a best case.
What explains the variation
Storage, overwhelmingly. Decks returning from customers with covered pallet storage average more than six further lives. Decks returning from sites that store outdoors on bare ground average fewer than three. The difference is larger than the difference between grades, species or original board count.
- Covered storage at the customer: 6+ further lives.
- Outdoor storage on sacrificial pallets: 4–5.
- Outdoor storage on bare ground: under 3.
- Racked unsupported at or above rating: roughly halves remaining life.
- One timely lead-board repair: adds an average of 1.8 lives.
The repair finding
The most commercially interesting number in the dataset: a deck that receives a lead-board replacement at first failure serves on average 1.8 more lives than one that is allowed to continue with a cracked lead board until something else fails. The repair costs about two dollars. We have been making this argument for years and it is good to finally have it in a table.
What it does not tell us
Our records are survivor-biased — we only see pallets that come back to us, so decks that were thrown away elsewhere are invisible. The true population average across all pallets in the region is certainly lower than 4.7. We would rather state that limitation than quietly present our figure as universal.
The best thing a customer can do for their own pallet costs has nothing to do with buying. It is a roof, and two sacrificial pallets underneath.
Written at the Meeks Blvd yard, St. Louis, and published on August 18, 2026. 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
- August 18, 2026
- 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, “What sixteen years of grading notes say about pallet lifespan”, Repallet Shop, August 18, 2026. repalletshop.com/blog/sixteen-years-of-grading-notes