We sell both, so we have no particular axe to grind — although we will admit a bias, which is that we would rather not watch hardwood get ground up while somebody two aisles away unwraps a new pallet.
Where new genuinely wins
Dimensional consistency. A new pallet is built to a jig, so every unit is within a few millimetres of every other. If you run an automated storage system, a shuttle rack or a robotic palletiser, that consistency is not a luxury — recycled decks will jam your equipment and no amount of grading will fully fix it.
Documented material. Pharmaceutical and some food-contact specifications require a documented new-material supply chain. We will not pretend otherwise; if your auditor requires it, you need new.
Engineered capacity. If you need a stated racked-load figure with a safety margin and a test report behind it, that is a new-build conversation.
Where recycled quietly wins
Moisture, surprisingly. New hardwood pallets are frequently built from boards in the high teens or low twenties for moisture content. As that wood dries in your warehouse it shrinks, fasteners lose grip, and the pallet loosens. A recycled deck has already finished drying — its dimensional future is behind it.
Known failure points. Every weak board in a recycled pallet has already failed and been replaced. What remains has survived a decade of handling, which is a far more rigorous test than anything a laboratory applies.
- Price: typically 30–40% of new for a #1 grade.
- Carbon: about 8% of new, because the milling and drying are already paid for.
- Availability: same day, in volume, every week of the year.
- Resale: a recycled standard-size pallet retains buy-back value; a custom new one does not.
The comparison people actually need
Most buyers are not choosing between new and recycled. They are choosing between new and a specific grade of recycled, and that is where the decision gets easy. An A-grade recycled deck handles nearly everything a new pallet handles, at half the price, with an eighth of the embodied carbon.
We have never once been asked to justify a recycled pallet by somebody who had first been shown the two load ratings side by side.
A decision rule you can use
Buy new if your line is automated, your specification demands documented material, or your racked load needs a certified figure. Otherwise buy A or #1 recycled, add a repair cycle, and spend the difference on having enough pallets — which is the actual problem in most warehouses.
Constants used in this piece
- New hardwood pallet, embodied
- 12.6 kg CO₂e
- Recycled deck, processed
- 1.0 kg CO₂e
- Net credit per reuse cycle
- 11.6 kg CO₂e
- Heat treatment, per deck
- 0.9 kg CO₂e
- Average pallet mass
- 15 kg / 33 lb
- Road freight
- 0.11 kg CO₂e / ton-mile
Our standing commitments
- Reuse first, repair second, recycle third, landfill never.
- A pallet is only downgraded for a defect a grader can name out loud.
- The recycled alternative appears on every quote, even when you ask for new.
- Every diversion figure traces back to a weighbridge ticket.
Written at the Meeks Blvd yard in St. Louis. If a figure here looks wrong to you, tell us — our model constants are published precisely so they can be argued with.