Grade B used plastic pallets

Sound structure, honest wear

Grade B is the working grade. Every pallet in a Grade B load has a whole deck and straight legs or runners, and it will carry what its model was built to carry on the floor. What separates it from Grade A is appearance: it has been used hard enough to show it, and nobody has tried to hide that.

The line between Grade B and the cracked pile is structural. A crack that runs through the deck, a missing leg, a broken runner or steel showing through the plastic takes a pallet out of the grade entirely. Those pallets aren't sold for reuse; they go to regrind.

Reading the wear

Most Grade B wear is cosmetic and tells a story. Fading means the pallets spent time in an open yard. Layers of labels mean they shipped outbound and came back many times. Fork scrapes along the entry openings are what any working fleet shows.

One kind of wear deserves a second look. Plastic that has had years of ultraviolet exposure can turn chalky on the surface before it shows any crack, and that surface is more brittle than the plastic beneath it. Faded but smooth is fine. Faded and powdery under a thumb belongs nearer the end of its life, and isn't Grade B.

Grade B and racks

Grade B is not for racking unless it has been checked, and checked means more than a glance. The model must be identified from its markings and must have been rack-rated by its maker. Each pallet that goes into a rack must sit flat, have straight runners and show no cracking at the runner joints or corner blocks. Then the load should stay well inside the model's published racked figure.

Most buyers skip all that and use Grade B on the floor, which is what it suits best. If the job needs racks, Grade A of a rack-rated model saves the inspection.

• Grade A used pallets →
• Reading racked, static and dynamic load →

Jobs that suit Grade B

Seasonal peaks suit it too. A retailer or grower who needs extra pallets for a harvest or holiday surge can buy a load for the season without tying capital up in a new fleet. And unlike worn wood, a worn plastic pallet doesn't splinter, shed nails or soak up spills, so even a scuffed one is kinder to cartons and to hands.

Grade B suits less well wherever the pallet is part of the presentation, such as a retail floor display, and wherever a machine expects identical bases, such as an automated storage system. It is also not the grade for direct food contact, since its history and resin paperwork are unknown.

• Block-stacked floor storage in warehouses and plants
• Work in progress moving between machines and stations
• Outbound one-way shipments that won't come back
• Export loads, where plastic needs no ISPM 15 treatment and looks matter less
• Staging and outdoor yard storage
• Replacing worn wood in back rooms and dry storage

Making Grade B presentable, and what it saves

Old labels peel more easily when warm; a heat gun or a pass through a washer softens the adhesive, and a plastic scraper avoids gouging the deck. Marker writing usually lifts with isopropyl alcohol. Faded color can't be restored, but it changes nothing about how the pallet works. Many buyers simply apply their own label over the old ones, or stencil a site code on the block faces.

Grade B costs less because you pay for structure rather than looks. How much less than Grade A depends on the footprint, on demand at that moment and on how many matched loads are around.

What a Grade B load looks like

A Grade B load is usually one model, sometimes a few close models of the same footprint and base style, so stacks build evenly and the pallets handle alike. Expect color to vary through the load, from near-new to sun-bleached, and expect labels you will want to peel or cover before outbound use.

To order, send the footprint, your heaviest load and how high loaded pallets will stack, the quantity and the delivery ZIP. We reply by email with the Grade B loads that fit, the models in each, and a delivered price on a 53-foot van or by LTL.

• Request a Grade B quote →