Plastic pallets

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Plastic pallets are pallets made of plastic. Plastic pallets are more widely used in Europe than in the rest of the world. Plastic pallets are often chosen over traditional wood pallets because they offer benefits which wood can not. Some benefits over wood include the ability to easily sanitize plastic pallets, resistance to odor, longer service life span, and lighter weight, thus saving transportation and labor costs.

Lately Schoeller Arca Systems (World Largest Manufacter of edge-rackable plastic pallets) created a plastic pallet with built-in track and trace system by using an RFID tracking system


There are 6 main types of plastic processes that are used to make pallets.

  • High Pressure Injection Molding
  • Structural Foam Molding
  • Thermoforming
  • Compression Molding
  • Rotational Molding
  • Profile Extrusion

[edit] History

There is no clear documented time at which plastic pallets first appeared, but the consensus in the pallet industry is that they most likely appeared in the United States after WW 2. Credit is given to ret. B-29 capt Leo Nathans (PDQ PLASTICS INC) for creating plastic pallets for the auto industry to ship car parts when metals were a precious commodity due to war effort.

Modern Material Handling Magazine earliest mention of plastic pallets is in 1964 for a fiberglass reinforced plastic pallet.


[edit] References

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