Black Plastic Pallets

Joined
Aug 7, 2017
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Are any other DC's out there not aloud to use the black plastic pallets? All freight that comes into our DC with those pallets is taken off and put onto the wood pallets. I remember when they first came out we were talking about going to those pallets but for some reason we are being told not to use them anymore. I couldn't find anything on DC Source to back up my DC's claim.
 
What type of DC do you work at? My RDC has never used them ever.
 
Don't think our IB team has to remove freight from the plastic pallets. They are just treated like chep/peco pallets where we don't reuse them, but if product arrives on them we can leave it on them.
 
Don't think our IB team has to remove freight from the plastic pallets. They are just treated like chep/peco pallets where we don't reuse them, but if product arrives on them we can leave it on them.
we were told it was all DC's were doing it this way, then we found out it wasn't true. Years ago when they first started coming in with freight we were actually talking about going to those plastic pallets because for the most part they are lighter than wooden skids plus its kinda hard to break them unless you run them over. Would probably save the company money in the long run rather than having to pay a company to fix wooden pallets.
 
we were told it was all DC's were doing it this way, then we found out it wasn't true. Years ago when they first started coming in with freight we were actually talking about going to those plastic pallets because for the most part they are lighter than wooden skids plus its kinda hard to break them unless you run them over. Would probably save the company money in the long run rather than having to pay a company to fix wooden pallets.
Yeah, only downside I remember from when I was in warehousing was that they were slightly harder for me to pull on a RR since they were all black so it was a little harder to line my forks up right, but it wasn't that big of a deal.
 
we were told it was all DC's were doing it this way, then we found out it wasn't true. Years ago when they first started coming in with freight we were actually talking about going to those plastic pallets because for the most part they are lighter than wooden skids plus its kinda hard to break them unless you run them over. Would probably save the company money in the long run rather than having to pay a company to fix wooden pallets.

No way those things are lighter than most wood pallets. Spent a lot of time pulling fallen pallets and freight out of the racks.

Those and the chep pallets were the worst.
 
My DC uses the black plastic ones. I put them away on occasion.

But once they are empty they don't get re-used again in the DC.
 
We absolutely do not use black plastic unless it is noncon flow. Everything else is rebuilt on wood.
 
they are dangerous as heck imo. every once in a while you see one, and it's probably going to go into a 14 stack of wood, and could easily make everything on top of it slide off. i try to put them on top of the stack at least.

actually other than the skid issue (not sure if it was all plastic pallets they'd interlock or something) all plastic pallets seem like it'd be a great idea and way safer for lifting as much lighter. i wonder if theyre not used for expense reasons.
 
they are dangerous as heck imo. every once in a while you see one, and it's probably going to go into a 14 stack of wood, and could easily make everything on top of it slide off. i try to put them on top of the stack at least.

actually other than the skid issue (not sure if it was all plastic pallets they'd interlock or something) all plastic pallets seem like it'd be a great idea and way safer for lifting as much lighter. i wonder if theyre not used for expense reasons.

Cost is probably the biggest factor but I'd imagine durability plays a part too, plastic pallets simply won't hold up as well as wood pallets do. A broken board on a wooden pallet can be replaced trivially, a broken plastic pallet can't be repaired at all and just has to go straight to a landfill.
 
Its actually really simple. We don't own them. There are only 2 approved pallet types both are whitewood pallets.
They're considered "pooled pallets" which means they're owned by a third party vendor. Even the blue and red chep pallets technically fall under this.

We're supposed to send them back to the vendors to be reused. They should not be sent out into the general warehouse.
 
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