Plastic pallets delivered in Wisconsin

America's Dairyland runs on washdown

Wisconsin makes more cheese than any other state, and its license plates still call it America's Dairyland. Creameries and cheese plants dot the countryside from Monroe and Green County in the south to Marshfield, Plymouth and the Fox Valley farther north.

Cheese rooms, brine tanks and milk receiving bays are wet and cold, and they are cleaned with hot water and chemicals every day. Wood soaks that up and holds bacteria in its grain; a plastic deck can be hosed, sanitized and dried.

The dairy trade commonly runs the 40x40 footprint for milk cases, while blocks and barrels of cheese often travel on 48x40. Aging rooms stack loads high for weeks at a time, so the static rating of the exact model is the one to check.

• Plastic pallets for dairy →
• 40x40 plastic pallets →

What Wisconsin makes and the pallet it rides on

Corridors: I-94, I-41, I-39 and I-90

I-94 runs from the Illinois line through Kenosha and Milwaukee to Madison, then northwest through Eau Claire to the Twin Cities. Between Kenosha and Milwaukee it has grown a dense belt of distribution buildings that serve both Chicago and Milwaukee.

I-41 carries freight north from Milwaukee through Fond du Lac, Oshkosh, Appleton and Green Bay. I-39 runs from the Illinois line through Madison and Stevens Point to Wausau, and I-90 crosses from Beloit through Madison to La Crosse. I-43 links Milwaukee, Sheboygan, Manitowoc and Green Bay along the lake shore.

Factories along those roads make more than food. Racine produces household cleaning products and farm tractors, Oshkosh builds specialty trucks for fire, defense and access work, and Kohler, near Sheboygan, casts plumbing fixtures. Heavy cast iron and vitreous china need decks with high dynamic figures and enough stiffness to keep fragile pieces from flexing on the forks.

Superior, in the far northwest, shares the Duluth-Superior harbor with Minnesota on Lake Superior.

Lake ports and the paper country

Port Milwaukee and the Port of Green Bay take ships from the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence Seaway, mostly bulk cargo like salt, cement, coal and grain rather than containers.

The Fox River valley between Neenah and Green Bay is one of the country's oldest papermaking regions, and tissue, towel and packaging plants still line it. Paper rolls are heavy, round and easily damaged by a rough deck, so mills ask for smooth tops and high static figures for floor storage.

Brewers in Milwaukee and La Crosse ship cased glass and kegs that travel on forks constantly. Ask for the dynamic rating of the model, since a brewery pallet spends more of its life moving than sitting still.

• Plastic pallets for beverage →

Cold docks and how loads arrive

A Wisconsin dock in January can be far below freezing. HDPE keeps its toughness in that cold, and PP copolymer handles it better than PP homopolymer, which can get brittle. Tell us the coldest temperature the fleet will see.

A truckload rides on a 53-foot dry van, about 52.5 feet long and 100 inches wide inside. One published Rehrig Pacific heavy-duty nestable 40x48 loads 1,200 to the trailer; rackable and stackable models with runners load far fewer. LTL serves a single creamery or a cranberry receiving station that needs a few stacks.

• HDPE vs polypropylene →

Selling surplus pallets from Wisconsin

Dairy plants that change customers or packaging often end up with a stack of pallets in the wrong footprint. Send count, footprint, resin code, condition and pickup ZIP, and we offer for them as pallets or as regrind. Pallets that carried cheese need to be clean before resale as Grade A.

Cranberry growers finish harvest in October and November, and brewers retire fleets when they rebrand or change keg suppliers. Both can be good moments to list surplus, since sorting by footprint and checking each runner takes less effort before the next busy season starts.

• Grade A used pallets →