How to stop paying to dumpster pallets
Pallets are bulky, so a few in a dumpster can force extra hauls. Count what you get for a week, pull out pooled pallets for their owners, batch the rest for a reuse pickup, then renegotiate the haul schedule. In North Carolina, Massachusetts and Vermont, state law already keeps pallets or wood out of landfills.
Steps
- Count a week of pallets by type: pooled (blue, red, plastic), sound whitewood, broken.
- Set pooled pallets aside and use each owner's return route (pooled pallets).
- Find a reuse pickup for the sound whitewood, and ask whether it will take broken pallets too.
- Stop putting pallets in the dumpster at all; make a pallet corral instead.
- After a month, compare pulls per month with the month before and adjust the haul schedule.
Work out the saving
Enter your haul cost per pull, pulls per month before and after, and any tip fee in the Pallet Fate Report. It shows the annual cost difference alongside landfill tons diverted and avoided emissions. We don't publish prices; use your own invoice.
Where it's already the law
North Carolina bans wooden pallets from MSW landfills (G.S. 130A-309.10), Massachusetts bans wood from landfills (310 CMR 19.017) and Vermont bans untreated wood waste (10 V.S.A. § 6621a). In those states a pallet in the trash may already be a compliance problem.
Sources
- N.C. Gen. Stat. § 130A-309.10 (prohibited acts; disposal bans) North Carolina General Assembly. Accessed October 27, 2026.
- 310 CMR 19.017 Waste Bans Massachusetts DEP (text via Cornell LII). Accessed October 27, 2026.
- 10 V.S.A. § 6621a Landfill disposal requirements Vermont General Assembly. Accessed October 27, 2026.