New vs. Recycled Pallets: How to Choose

You have been quoted both. One line says new, the other says recycled, and nobody has told you which one your freight actually needs. So you guess, or you default to new because it feels safer.

Here is what gets skipped in that conversation. Recycled pallets are not a scrap pile. They are recovered, sorted, repaired and graded before they go back out the door, which makes them a controlled product you can specify. And new is not automatically better. Choose wrong in one direction and product arrives damaged. Choose wrong in the other and you have bought twenty trips of service life for a pallet that will make exactly one.

This guide gives you the actual decision criteria: what each type does well, where each one fails, and what to ask a supplier so you get the grade you expected.

What “recycled pallet” actually means

A recycled pallet is a used wood pallet that has been recovered from a business, sorted by size and condition, repaired where needed and graded for reuse. It differs from a remanufactured pallet, rebuilt into a new size from recovered parts, and a combo pallet, built from both new and recovered components — all of them covered in the complete guide to wood pallets in Ontario.

The pipeline behind that definition matters more than the label. Pallets come back to a yard from warehouses, distribution centres and plants that have no use for them once the load is off. They get unloaded and sorted first by footprint, then by condition. A 48” x 40” GMA pallet goes in one stack, a 48” x 48” in another, odd sizes somewhere else.

Then the repair work. Cracked or missing deck boards are pulled and replaced with sound lumber. A split stringer is either plugged and mended or fitted with a companion stringer nailed alongside to carry the load. Protruding and loose nails are re-driven or removed. Anything with rot, a chemical stain, heavy contamination or a broken bottom board pattern that cannot be corrected comes out of the reuse stream entirely.

What survives gets graded and stacked for reissue. That is the part buyers underestimate. Grading is a sorting decision made by someone who handles thousands of these a week, and it is the reason a recycled unit can be ordered to a standard rather than accepted on faith.

Three terms buyers mix up

•          Recycled or reconditioned — recovered, repaired and graded for reuse in its original footprint. Same size it started as.

•          Remanufactured — dismantled down to components and rebuilt into a different size. Useful when you need a footprint that is not common in the recovery stream.

•          Combo — built with a mix of new and recovered components, often new deck boards on recovered stringers. Sits between the two on consistency.

The key point is this: a repaired pallet is not automatically a weaker pallet. A replaced deck board is new wood, freshly fastened. What changes with a used unit is cosmetic consistency and the odds of fatigue you cannot see from the outside. That is a real difference, but it is a different difference than “weaker.”

What a new pallet gives you that a recycled one cannot

Dimensional consistency. A new build holds its footprint to the eighth of an inch, board to board and unit to unit. If your pallets ride a conveyor, feed an automated storage and retrieval system, drop into tight rack bays or pass under a machine-applied stretch wrapper, variance is what jams the equipment. Recovered stock varies, because it was built by different plants in different years to different tolerances.

Known history. No prior load, no unknown moisture exposure, no chance of a stain or an odour left behind by whatever the last shipper spilled on it. For food-adjacent, pharmaceutical or scent-sensitive freight, that clean history is often the whole argument.

Buildability. With new, you specify. Species, board count, deck board thickness, stringer dimension, notched or unnotched, fastener type, chamfered lead edges for smoother pallet jack entry. With recovered stock you take what the inbound flow supplies in the footprint you need.

Appearance. If the pallet reaches a retail floor, a showroom or a customer who judges your operation by what shows up on the dock, clean uniform lumber does work that a repaired unit does not.

Export. Wood packaging leaving Canada has to be debarked and heat treated to a core temperature of at least 56°C for 30 continuous minutes, then stamped by a facility registered under the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s Heat Treated Wood Products Certification Program. Building new stock and running it through that process is the clean, documented path. It is not the only path, but it is the one with the fewest ways to go wrong.

What a recycled pallet gives you that a new one cannot

Sensible cost per trip on one-way lanes. The logic is plain. If the pallet leaves your yard and never comes back, every bit of extra service life built into it is service life you will never collect on. Paying for a twenty-trip pallet to make a one-trip journey is buying durability that walks out the door with your customer. Recovered stock right-sizes the pallet to the trip it is actually making.

Immediate landfill diversion. Reuse keeps sound wood in service instead of in a bin. That is a straightforward sustainability story you can hand to a customer, put in a supplier questionnaire or drop into an ESG report without stretching anything. The wood was already made. Using it again is the lowest-impact thing you can do with it.

Availability in common footprints. When new production lead times stretch, the recovery stream often still has volume in standard sizes. If you need several hundred 48” x 40” units for next week and your season just started early, recovered stock is frequently the only realistic answer.

A closed loop. A supplier who sells you pallets and also takes your spent ones back turns pallet management into one relationship instead of two. Outbound and inbound run on the same trucks, and if you are working out what to do with used and broken pallets, the ones you no longer want become somebody’s supply instead of your disposal problem.

Recycled pallets vs. new pallets: side-by-side

Factor	New	Recycled (A grade)	Recycled (B grade)
Dimensional consistency	Built to spec, consistent	Close, minor variation	Varies by batch
Appearance	Clean, uniform lumber	Good, light wear	Visible repairs and wear
Typical load performance	To specification	Comparable for general freight	Sound for utility work
Expected number of trips	Longest service life	Multiple further trips	Fewer remaining trips
Availability of unusual sizes	Built to any footprint	Limited to recovery stream	Limited to recovery stream
Suitability for automation	Best fit	Case by case — confirm with supplier	Not recommended
Suitability for racking	Best fit, confirm rating	Case by case — confirm rating	Not recommended
Suitability for export	Clean path, heat treated and stamped	Only with a valid current HT mark	Only with a valid current HT mark
Repairability	Fully repairable	Fully repairable	Repairable until components fail
Environmental profile	New fibre, recyclable at end of life	Reuse, landfill diversion	Reuse, maximum diversion
Supply predictability	Production scheduled	Depends on inbound volume	Depends on inbound volume

Match the pallet to the job

Stop thinking in categories and start thinking in lanes. Here is how six common profiles usually shake out.

•          One-way shipment to a customer who will not return the pallet. Recycled. Pick A grade if the load is customer-facing or has to look right on arrival, B grade if it is going straight into someone’s receiving bay.

•          Internal yard and plant movement, forklift only. Recycled, B grade. The pallet never leaves your control, you can inspect it whenever you want, and you pull it from service the day it looks tired.

•          Long-term storage in selective racking. New or high-grade recycled, and confirm the racking rating specifically for the unit you are buying. Unsupported rack storage puts the load on the stringers in a way floor stacking never does.

•          Automated conveyor, wrapper or AS/RS handling. New. Dimensional variance is what stops automated lines, and one jam can hold up a whole shift.

•          Export outside Canada. New or purpose-built, heat treated and stamped by a CFIA-registered facility. Get the documentation with the shipment.

•          Heavy, oversized or high-value freight. Custom built to spec, not pulled off a stack. Machinery, castings and anything with an awkward centre of gravity needs a base designed around the load, and often a crate rather than a pallet.

How grading works, and what to ask for

Grades are the language of this purchase. Learn them and the conversation gets short.

A grade, also called #1, is the cleanest reusable tier. Sound stringers, full-length deck boards, minimal or no repair, consistent appearance within the stack. This is what you order when the pallet is going somewhere you would rather not apologize for.

B grade, also called #2, shows its history. Plugged or companion stringers, replaced boards, mismatched lumber colour, visible wear. It is a working pallet built for utility, and for plenty of jobs it is exactly the right tool.

Combos sit between the two, built with new and recovered components. Below B grade, material is worth more dismantled than reissued, so it goes to pallet lumber or gets ground for other uses rather than being sold as a pallet.

Four questions to ask any supplier before you commit:

1.        What grade am I getting, in your own definitions?

2.        What repairs are typical in that grade — companion stringers, replaced boards, both?

3.        How consistent is the size within a bundle? Ask specifically, because “48 by 40” covers a lot of ground in the recovery stream.

4.        Can you hold that grade at my volume, week over week, through my busy season?

That last one separates suppliers faster than anything else. For the full breakdown of each tier, see our dedicated article with recycled pallet grades explained [→ /blog/recycled-pallet-grades].

Pallet supply in Southwestern Ontario

Recycled supply is an inbound-flow business, and that is why geography matters here in a way it does not for new production. A yard can only reissue what comes back through its gates. A recycler receiving steady volume from the surrounding industrial base can hold a grade consistently and fill a repeat order in the same condition it filled the last one. A yard without that flow cannot, no matter what it promises.

Southwestern Ontario has the flow. Oxford County, Woodstock, Ingersoll, Tillsonburg and Norwich sit inside a manufacturing and distribution corridor that runs out to London, Brantford, Kitchener–Waterloo, Cambridge, Hamilton, Stratford, St. Thomas and Simcoe. That density is what makes reliable used pallets in Ontario possible rather than occasional.

Oxford Pallet has been part of that flow since 1999. Spent pallets come back through the PalletWise buyback and reimbursement program, get sorted and repaired in our 54,000 square foot facility in Norwich, and go back out graded. What cannot be reissued does not go to landfill — it goes to one of the many uses for pallet lumber, or it is processed into wood shavings and sawdust for our animal bedding division. Full circle, low waste, and the reason we can hold a grade for customers who order the same thing every week.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are recycled pallets as strong as new pallets?

For most general freight and warehousing, a well-graded recycled unit performs comparably to new. The real difference is consistency and remaining service life, not automatic weakness. For rack storage, automated handling or export, confirm the specific rating with your supplier or choose new.

What is the difference between A grade and B grade pallets?

A grade, or #1, is the cleanest reusable tier: sound stringers, full deck boards, minimal repair and a consistent look. B grade, or #2, shows visible repairs such as plugged or companion stringers and replaced boards. B grade is built for utility work where appearance does not matter.

Can a recycled pallet be used for export?

Only if the wood packaging carries a valid, current heat-treatment mark from a facility registered under the CFIA’s HT program. Never assume an old stamp on a used pallet is still valid for your shipment. Confirm it with your supplier before the load goes out.

Where can I buy recycled pallets in Southwestern Ontario?

From a regional recycler with steady inbound volume, because that flow is what keeps grades consistent. Oxford Pallet operates from Norwich in Oxford County and delivers on its own fleet across Woodstock, London, Brantford, Kitchener–Waterloo, Hamilton and the surrounding region.

Get a Quote on New or Recycled Pallets

You do not have to work this out alone. Send us the lane, and we will tell you what it needs.

What we need from you is short: the load weight, the footprint you are using now, whether the pallet comes back or stays with the customer, and roughly how many you go through in a month. Add anything unusual — rack storage, automation, an export destination, freight that will not sit flat. That is enough for us to recommend a grade instead of you guessing at one.

The other half of the offer is the part most suppliers cannot make. The same yard that sells you pallets will take your spent ones back through PalletWise, repair what can be repaired, and turn the rest into lumber and bedding. One relationship, both directions, and a lot less wood in the bin.

Request a quote, or call us at 519-468-3400 and talk to someone who has spent time in the yard.

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