Plastic pallets delivered in North Carolina

Mountains, Piedmont and coastal plain

North Carolina's freight runs across three bands of country. The mountains around Asheville and Boone sit on I-26 and I-40. The Piedmont, from Charlotte through Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Durham and Raleigh, holds most of the people and plants. The coastal plain east of I-95 is farm country, with the ports at its edge.

I-85 links Charlotte, Greensboro and Durham on its way from Atlanta to Virginia, and I-40 crosses the whole state from the Tennessee line to Wilmington. I-95 runs north and south through Fayetteville, Rocky Mount and Roanoke Rapids, and I-77 carries Charlotte freight north toward Ohio.

Pharma and biotech in the Triangle

Research Triangle Park, between Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill, is one of the largest research parks in the country. Drug, vaccine and biologics makers have built plants in the park and in nearby towns such as Holly Springs, Clayton and Morrisville.

Those buyers work under good manufacturing practice and want pallets that can be wiped down in a gowned area. A smooth, closed deck molded from virgin resin, with the maker's paperwork, is the usual request. Recycled resin can carry unknown content, so it rarely suits these rooms.

Cold-chain shipments of biologics also need pallets that hold up in refrigerated trucks and coolers.

• Pharmaceutical distribution →
• Pharmaceutical pallets →

Pork, poultry and sweet potatoes in the east

North Carolina is one of the top hog-producing states, and one of the largest pork processing plants in the world operates in Bladen County. Poultry plants spread across the coastal plain and the Piedmont, and turkey growing is concentrated in the southeast counties.

Meat and poultry rooms run cold and wet, with sanitation every shift. Plastic decks can be hosed and sanitized, and they do not take up blood or water the way wood does. Ask the maker for food-contact paperwork for the exact model.

North Carolina also leads the nation in sweet potato production. Growers cure and store them for months in warm, humid rooms where wood can grow mold, so ventilated plastic decks are a good fit.

• Meat and poultry plants →
• Fresh produce →

Ports, inland terminals and Charlotte

The Port of Wilmington, on the Cape Fear River, handles containers, breakbulk and refrigerated cargo. Morehead City, farther up the coast, specializes in bulk and breakbulk. North Carolina Ports also runs an inland terminal in Charlotte, and CSX opened the Carolina Connector intermodal terminal near Rocky Mount on I-95.

Exporters loading at their own dock can use plastic pallets without the ISPM 15 heat treatment that applies to wood packaging. A 40-foot container is about 39.5 feet long and 7.7 feet wide inside, which decides how many pallets of a given footprint fit.

Charlotte sits where I-85 and I-77 meet, and its airport is a major hub, so the metro has a large cluster of regional DCs serving the Carolinas.

• Plastic export pallets →

Furniture, yarn and batteries in the Piedmont

High Point hosts one of the world's biggest home furnishings trade shows, and case goods and upholstery plants still operate around High Point, Hickory, Lenoir and Thomasville. Sofas and cabinets are bulky but not dense, so buyers care about footprint, deck flatness and stacking height more than very high ratings.

The state's textile mills have shrunk, but yarn spinners and fabric makers remain in Gaston and Alamance counties, and cones of yarn travel on pallets with clean, snag-free decks. Toyota's battery plant in Liberty, Randolph County, adds a new auto-sector buyer whose suppliers favor returnable loops and the 48x45 footprint.

• Automotive pallets →

Getting an order to a North Carolina dock

Truckloads move on a 53-foot dry van, about 52.5 feet long and 100 inches wide inside. A published Rehrig Pacific heavy-duty nestable 40x48 fits 1,200 to the trailer; rackable models with three runners take far more room each. LTL brings smaller orders to a furniture plant in Hickory or a sweet potato packer in Nash County.

Selling surplus pallets from North Carolina

Furniture makers in High Point and Hickory and meat plants in the east sometimes retire whole fleets. Send count, footprint, resin, condition and pickup ZIP, and we offer for them as pallets or as regrind. Clean, whole pallets can sell as Grade A or B; cracked ones still have resin value.

• Sell plastic pallets →