Switching to plastic pallets can provide sustainable benefits

Increasingly over the last few years, we have seen many more businesses make the switch to plastic to realise the sustainable benefits.

A major advantage of utilising plastic pallets is the increase in operational efficiency and longevity. Customers can benefit from a plastic pallet’s strength, dimensional consistency, minimal deflection, and incredibly long lifespan.

It is this impressive and consistent performance and long life that makes plastic pallets an attractive and sustainable option for many organisations, including food manufacturers.

The same plastic pallet can be used multiple times, with the ability to be cleaned to a high standard, and last for up to 10 years. Ultimately the fact it can be recycled once it is no longer needed, makes the ‘used’ into the ‘useful’ once more.

Recently, we supplied a reusable plastic pallet solution to a major UK food manufacturer. The customer was looking for a pallet capable of handling bulk dried ingredients, up to 2000kg in weight, in its new, state-of-the-art raw materials warehouse.

The customer required a pallet that could be used within a new semi-automated high density storage system that retrieves and puts away pallets within a specially designed rack structure. This optimised space, increased efficiency and helped with stock rotation. The pallet, of course, also needed to adhere to the Food Contact Materials Regulation (EC) 1935/2004.

After a successful trial, we recommended our APB 1210 Super Pool 5R plastic pallet in virgin grade high quality Polypropylene material. This heavy-duty pallet is of the highest specification, offering minimal deflection under load, with a proven track record for long-term use in multi-trip supply chain scenarios.

This is an ideal pallet for use within food applications. The structure of the pallet is well designed with no dirt traps. Both the top and underside of the pallet deck and runners are smooth and radiused with no sharp edges, minimising dirty traps in use. This pallet is easy to wash and dry in a fully automatic pallet wash machine, which was an important element in this application where the pallet needs to be washed frequently to ensure compliance with the internal GMP (good manufacturing practices) of the food manufacturing sector.

The customer purchased almost 2,400 pallets initially and added a further 400 to supplement the growth of business.

This food business can have complete peace of mind knowing that, over the next decade or longer, they will not have to replace their plastic pallets and they will perform as expected, providing a profitable return on investment. Then, at the end of their long working life, these plastic pallets can be collected back and fully recycled to create the next wave of sustainable pallets.

For expert pallet advice, call the team at Goplasticpallets.com on 01323 744057 or email sales@goplasticpallets.com