well, I guess you don't use much fire wood :) but lots of folks use them for compost bin walls, or if you're energetic you can take them apart [easier said than done usually] and use the lumber for yard projects

the best thing would be to agitate a bit to see that they get re-used as pallets, or at least go to a facility to be ground up for use as shredded wood waste - I'm suprised that they'd be discarded on an island where trash disposal must be getting to be a problem

Bill

Thanks Bill,
"I'm suprised that they'd be discarded on an island where trash disposal must be getting to be a problem"
-- You read my mind!
Is pallet wood clean/untreated?

generally yes - it's usually the crummiest cheap wood that has no better use, hence cheap, and pallets are built with the least amount of material possible - frequently pine, sometimes oak, ocassionally mahogany if from the east

sounds like in this situation the pallets are single use, not returnable, maybe because the shipper is from the mainland, so being for paper supplies should be quite clean - there are some 2 billion pallets in circulation in the US, and they've been a very large portion of the waste stream, tho they are totally reuseable, can be dissassembled and rebuilt, and are easily ground up for carbon additions to commercial composting or used in composite wood products - go for it! :)

Bill

Thanks Bill!

I came here to ask about pallets--treated wood or untreated? My hunch was, as you said, Bill, that they are made of the cheapest possible wood, so they would be unlikely to be treated.

Thanks. I'm going outside now to make a compost bin from my pallets!

I know that post is 2 years old, but I have friends that have recovered very interesting tropical wood from pallets. It's possible that pallets in HI could be made of an interesting Asian wood. Most here are oak.

Forgive my lack of knowledge but is nothing shipped in the opposite direction?.....that can utilize the pallets?

Even though this original post is old the problems of this nature exist all over the mainland as well as Hawaii where 90% of everyday goods are imported. So there is no practical way to ship 10% out with 90% coming in. The challenge is to think of ways to recycle things locally and use locally but our global economy continues to defy this. I am a garden center manager in Texas now but lived in Hawaii for 10 years so I understand the situation there first hand. I give my extra pallets away so they won't go in the landfill. Over the last year this has worked well overall. I am trying to do the same for surplus cardboard (offering it for free to customers for mulching, lasagne gardening, whatever use people can think of instead seeing it all go in the waste stream. Some of my growers get beer flats that they send their 1 gallon plants in and if I can remove them before they get wet, I send them back out the door with purchased plants. How many ways can you think of to reuse something that ends up in the trash is one less thing thrown away and added to a landfill. We all need to look to do our part in more ways when we can. Think outside the box or pallet as it were:)
Happy Growing David

I use pallets for a compost bin. Works great. The pallets keep the compost in but allow for plenty of air circulation even from the bottom side. Just get five pallets; one for the floor. Nail three sides together and use the last pallet as a door; either attached with clothes hangers or with hinges.
I actually paid $2 a piece for my pallets.

Pete

I'm not in the pallet business, but I am a forester. I know that USDA is very concerned about importing exotic insects in foreign-made pallets. As such, most imported pallets are sprayed with some very nasty insecticides, and Asian countries are allowed to use chemicals long banned in the U.S.
I would never use these anywhere near any garden, burn them, or grind them up for compost. Like RailRoad ties, they are hazardous waste.
Bradford

The amount of waste that goes on around us every day is just obscene. I cant believe something as useful as wood pallets is just thrown out.

David I wish every business was as conscientious as you are, I think its great that you try to get people to look at better alternatives and to reuse materials. what a different world it would be if all businesses did that.

I am always open to other ideas for reuse so if anyone thinks of some share so we all can join in as we can in our own part of the world. Each person here is already doing a part by thinking of ways to grow plants safer and closing loops where they can. I applaud each and everyone of you for your effort and as always
Happy Growing David

One common use of pallets is to store hay or straw bales up away from moisture that might rise from a dirt or cement floor. They stay cleaner, too. I have also used them on a cement floor to pile paper bags (the bags may have had a plastic lining, but I wasn't sure) of fertilizer, etc. since I was afraid condensation/rising moisture would get the bottoms damp and cake the contents.

If you have extra nursery pots sitting around for you to re-use, storing them on pallets will limit the amount of dirt-splash on them and the number of bugs that try to live in them, if they are outside. And you can make a bin for them, like the compost bin, so winds and curious animals don't scatter them. Behind the garage or a shed works well for this, since they aren't especially pretty.

Treemanhouston, is there a way to know where the pallets come from? For example, I can get plenty of free ones from my local seed company. Most of them are from farm equipment, so I would think they're mostly US.

David, bravo to you. Can we clone you and get you into some grocery stores? I go crazy at how much produce is tossed out, and they won't let me have any for my pile.

They won't let you have spoiled produce? That's bizarre, I'd take it up the management chain until you reach someone with a brain.

The problem with the pallett thing is that they are a low-value item to start with, and by the nature of trade they get diffused broadly to situations where they have no cash value. For anyone to make a business of collecting and re-using pallets they would have to get the pallets back to where they are in demand, and in usable condition. A significant amount of fuel would get used up in people driving around collecting pallets, and then in trucking them back to factories, etc. This is just one of the hundreds of undesirable effects of a centralized economy. If areas had evenly distributed economies, then pallets would have a demand in all areas.