Find a forklift, and it’s very likely that nearby you will find a pallet or even a stack of pallets. Forklift and pallets go hand in hand, so much so that it is literally difficult to determine which came first; the forklift or the pallet.
The standard pallet measurements in the US is 42” wide and 48” long. Pallets have wooden slats on both the top and the bottom. Don’t confuse a “pallet” with a “skid” which lacks the slats on the bottom side.
Most pallets are made out of wood, although some facilities that deal with food or easily contaminated materials will opt for plastic pallets. They are lighter than their wooden counterparts and therefore easier to transport. They tend to take up less space and are more eco-friendly. They also (and this is no small thing) don’t break as easy as wooden pallets and frankly they’re safer than wood as well. Wood splinters, plastic does not.
On the other hand, plastic pallets are more expensive. Typically, shippers using plastic pallets want them to be returned.
The surface on a plastic pallet can be slippery, causing the materials it is carrying to shift and move during transport.
When a plastic pallet is damaged, it’s generally not reparable and needs to be recycled.
Every warehouse in the country has a giant stack of broken pallets somewhere off in a corner. More often than not, any damage inflicted to a wooden pallet has been caused by a forklift. There is an item called a “Pallet Shield” that you can acquire that helps prevent some frontal damage, but the fact is stuff happens and wooden pallets are just more likely to be damaged. They can also be rebuilt and repaired fairly easily and generally speaking shipping companies do not expect pallets to be returned.
Pallets are your friend. They have remained relatively unchanged in over a hundred years, because the current design just simply works.
If you do have special pallet needs, or want to know more about pallets, our folks can certainly help. We’ve never met a pallet we didn’t like.