Plastic pallets delivered in Georgia

Savannah sets the pace

The Port of Savannah is one of the busiest container ports in the country, and its Garden City Terminal is the largest single container terminal in North America. Most of the boxes it handles are trucked inland on I-16 toward Macon or on I-95 north and south, or loaded onto CSX and Norfolk Southern trains.

The warehouses in Chatham, Effingham and Bryan counties unload import containers and stage export loads. Exporters there use plastic pallets because ISPM 15 applies only to wood packaging, so there is no heat treatment or IPPC mark to prove at the destination port.

The Appalachian Regional Port at Chatsworth lets shippers in northwest Georgia and the Chattanooga area put containers on a train to Savannah instead of trucking them the length of the state. Carpet mills and other manufacturers near Dalton use it for export loads, which then need pallets that will clear the receiving port without wood-treatment questions.

The Port of Brunswick, farther south, handles vehicles and other roll-on, roll-off cargo rather than containers.

• Plastic export pallets →
• Export freight →

Georgia freight nodes at a glance

Atlanta, where three interstates cross

I-75, I-85 and I-20 all meet inside the I-285 perimeter, which puts Atlanta at the center of Southeastern distribution. Big DC clusters sit south of the airport along I-75 in Clayton and Henry counties, northeast along I-85 in Gwinnett and Jackson counties, and west along I-20 toward Douglas County.

Grocery and retail buildings in those clusters mostly run 48x40. Racked storage needs a model the maker has rated for racking, with runners that bridge the beams; a nestable pallet without a racked rating should stay on the floor.

Beverage bottlers around Atlanta ship heavy cased product and often use their own footprint. Tell us the size your customers' docks expect.

Middle Georgia, around Macon and Warner Robins on I-75, supports aircraft maintenance at Robins Air Force Base. Defense suppliers there often specify the 40x48 footprint the military uses, and they may ask for a model with a recorded resin and molding history.

Poultry, carpet and cars outside the metro

Georgia raises more broiler chickens than nearly any other state, and Gainesville in Hall County calls itself the poultry capital of the world. Processing rooms there are wet and cold and are sanitized every shift, so a plastic deck that can be washed and does not hold water fits the job.

Dalton, in the northwest corner off I-75, is the center of US carpet manufacturing. Rolls and yarn are heavy and long, so mills ask about large footprints and static ratings for floor storage.

Kia builds vehicles in West Point on I-85, and Hyundai's new plant in Bryan County sits near Savannah. Suppliers to both run returnable parts loops, where the 48x45 footprint used in the auto trade is common.

South Georgia grows peanuts, pecans, Vidalia onions and peaches, and packing sheds there use open decks that let produce breathe in cold storage.

• Meat and poultry plants →

Truckload or LTL in Georgia

Full orders ship on a 53-foot dry van, about 52.5 feet long and 100 inches wide inside. A heavy-duty nestable 40x48 published by Rehrig Pacific loads 1,200 to a trailer, while rackable models with three runners take far more room per pallet.

LTL serves a single packing shed in Tifton or a mill in Rome that needs a few stacks. Rural sites without a dock can usually arrange a liftgate delivery.

Selling surplus pallets in Georgia

Port-area warehouses collect mixed plastic pallets that arrive under import cargo and never go back. Send the count, footprint, resin if marked, condition and pickup ZIP, and we reply with an offer as pallets or as regrind. Sorted by footprint, an assortment like that can sell as a mixed lot.

Carpet mills in Whitfield and Murray counties retire pallets that carried yarn and backing. Heavy scuffing on the top deck is acceptable for Grade B if the legs stay straight and the deck has no splits.

• Mixed lots of used pallets →