Plastic pallets delivered in Michigan

Built around the auto industry

Southeast Michigan is the historic center of the US auto industry, and assembly plants in Detroit, Dearborn, Warren, Sterling Heights, Flint and Lansing still draw parts from hundreds of suppliers. Much of that freight moves in returnable packaging: totes, racks and plastic pallets that go to the line loaded and come back to the supplier empty.

A returnable loop is where plastic beats wood on cost. A molded pallet can make many trips, keeps the same dimensions every time for robots and conveyors, and does not shed nails or splinters onto a paint line.

The auto trade commonly uses the 48x45 footprint, sized for the containers and racks built around it, though some programs specify their own dimensions.

• Plastic pallets for automotive →
• 48x45 plastic pallets →

Michigan industries and the pallet each uses

West Michigan: furniture, cereal and medicine

Grand Rapids, Holland and Zeeland make a large share of the country's office furniture: desks, seating, panels and storage cabinets. Those pieces are bulky rather than dense, so a wide footprint and a flat, unbroken deck that will not mark finished surfaces count for more than a very high rating.

Battle Creek is known for breakfast cereal, and Fremont for baby food. Both run food plants with strict sanitation, where a pallet that can be washed and that never drops splinters into a line has an obvious use.

Kalamazoo and Portage hold pharmaceutical and medical-device manufacturing. Buyers there tend to want virgin resin, smooth surfaces and the maker's paperwork for every model.

• Medical device makers →

Crossing into Ontario

The Ambassador Bridge between Detroit and Windsor carries more trade than any other crossing on the US-Canada border, and much of it is auto parts moving between plants on both sides. The Blue Water Bridge at Port Huron and Sarnia handles the rest of the eastern Michigan traffic, along with rail tunnels under the Detroit and St. Clair rivers.

Parts can cross the border several times before they end up in a finished vehicle. Plastic pallets avoid the ISPM 15 treatment and IPPC mark that apply to wood packaging in international trade, which takes one inspection question off every crossing.

Load ratings still matter. Ask for the dynamic figure of the exact model if the pallet will ride a conveyor or a tugger train inside the plant.

• ISPM 15 and plastic pallets →

Interstates across both peninsulas

I-75 runs from Toledo through Detroit, Flint and Saginaw, then up the Lower Peninsula and over the Mackinac Bridge to Sault Ste. Marie. I-94 crosses the south from Port Huron through Detroit, Ann Arbor, Jackson, Battle Creek and Kalamazoo to Benton Harbor and Chicago.

I-96 joins Detroit and Lansing to Grand Rapids and Muskegon, I-69 runs from Port Huron through Flint and Lansing toward Indiana, and US-131 carries freight north from Kalamazoo through Grand Rapids.

Deliveries to the Upper Peninsula travel a long way on two-lane roads, so the delivered price to Marquette or Escanaba reflects the distance.

Cold winters and cold rooms

Michigan docks get very cold in January, and so do its fruit coolers and frozen food buildings all year. HDPE stays tough at low temperatures, while some PP homopolymer grades get brittle; PP copolymer handles cold better than homopolymer.

If a fleet will sit outside or run in a freezer, give us the lowest temperature it will see, and ask the maker to confirm the model's range.

• HDPE vs polypropylene →
• Cold storage pallets →

Freight and the end of a program

Truckloads go 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 fits 1,200 per trailer, while a racking pallet with three runners takes far more room. Smaller orders go LTL to a single dock.

When a vehicle program ends, its dedicated pallets often turn surplus all at once. Send count, footprint, resin, condition and pickup ZIP, and we offer for them as pallets or as regrind. Parts makers' logos hot-stamped on the side do not stop a resale.

• Who buys plastic pallets →