Plastic pallets delivered in Louisiana

The river corridor from Baton Rouge to the Gulf

The Mississippi between Baton Rouge and New Orleans is lined with refineries, chemical plants, grain elevators and terminals for about 85 miles. The Port of South Louisiana, centered on LaPlace and St. James Parish, is one of the largest ports by tonnage in the Western Hemisphere. The Port of Baton Rouge marks the upper end of deep-draft navigation, and the Port of New Orleans handles containers, breakbulk, steel and project cargo at the downriver end.

Barges reach this stretch from the whole Mississippi system, and ocean ships carry grain, petrochemicals and plastics resin out to world markets. Six Class I railroads meet at New Orleans, one of very few places in North America where that happens.

• Plastic pallets for export freight →

Chemicals, drums and totes

Louisiana's petrochemical plants make polyethylene and polypropylene resin, solvents, chlorine, fertilizer and many intermediates. Much of the finished output leaves in bulk, but additives, catalysts, lab samples and specialty products travel in steel or plastic drums and IBC totes.

A drum pallet carries four drums on a 48x48 or 44x44 footprint, often with a lip or a spill sump molded into the deck. HDPE resists a wide range of acids, alkalis and salts, and it doesn't wick a leak into the deck the way wood does. Check the maker's chemical resistance data for the exact product you store, and its dynamic rating for four full drums.

• Plastic pallets for chemicals →
• Drum plastic pallets →

Interstates linking the parishes

I-10 carries most east-west freight, from Lake Charles through Lafayette and Baton Rouge to New Orleans and Slidell. I-12 cuts north of Lake Pontchartrain from Baton Rouge to Slidell, bypassing the city. I-49 runs north from Lafayette through Alexandria to Shreveport, and I-20 crosses the north from Shreveport through Monroe toward Jackson. I-55 heads north from LaPlace through Hammond toward Mississippi.

Shreveport and Bossier City hold distribution and manufacturing in the northwest corner, closer to Dallas than to New Orleans. Monroe and West Monroe, on I-20 in the northeast, have paper mills and food plants, and Alexandria at the center of the state is a junction for I-49 and US 165 traffic heading to the piney woods.

Seafood, coffee and sugar

Louisiana lands a large share of the country's shrimp, oysters and crawfish, with docks and processors spread along the coastal parishes. Seafood plants run cold, wet and salty, so a solid HDPE deck that takes ice and a hose suits them, and FSMA's sanitary transport rule expects food equipment to be adequately cleanable.

New Orleans has long been one of the main US ports for green coffee, and roasters and warehouses there store bagged beans in rack. Sugar mills in the cane parishes grind each fall and ship raw sugar in bulk and bags. Both trades put dense, heavy loads on a pallet, so the dynamic and racked numbers on the maker's sheet matter more than its static figure.

• Food grade plastic pallets →

Humidity, storms and plastic

Wood pallets stored outside in Louisiana's heat and humidity swell, grow mold and rot faster than they would inland. HDPE and PP copolymer absorb almost no water, which is one reason plants near the Gulf move to plastic for pallets that live in yards. Hurricane season can close terminals and roads, so give us a flexible delivery window for late summer and fall orders.

Delivery and buy-back

A truckload ships on a 53-foot van to your gate or dock; plant sites often need a safety orientation or a gate appointment, so tell us the rules. Smaller orders move LTL into Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Lafayette and Shreveport, with longer routing to coastal and rural parishes.

To sell used or cracked plastic pallets, send the count, footprint, resin code, condition and pickup ZIP. We reply with an offer for reusable pallets, or for regrind. Pallets that held chemicals need a note on what they carried.

• How a lot is priced →