Empty pallets pile up faster than anyone plans for, and a stack behind the building is space you are paying rent on. Twenty pallets is a stack 8 to 10 feet tall on a 4 by 3 foot footprint; a hundred is five of those, or a corner of the lot nobody can park in. Here are the ways to clear them, roughly in order of how little work they make for you, and then the part most guides skip: what to do when your pile is small, mixed or broken.
1. Have a pallet company collect them
A pallet recycler picks up the stack, repairs what can be repaired and recycles the rest. For a business with a steady flow, this becomes a standing schedule, weekly or monthly, worked around your receiving hours. For a one time pile, it is a one off clearance.
Whether the collection is paid or not depends on what is in the stack. Clean 48 x 40 pallets in good shape have resale value, and some yards will buy those or take them off your hands. Broken, mixed size, odd size or painted pallets cost money to sort, repair and rebuild, so a collection of those is normally a paid service. Ask before you assume either way, and be straight about the condition, because a yard that shows up expecting clean GMA stock and finds a mixed pile will price the job differently on the spot.
2. Sell them
If you have volume in a standard size and good condition, a pallet yard may buy them. Expect the price to depend on grade, size and how many you have, and expect nobody to want a mixed pile of broken ones. The buyers want truckloads of clean 48 x 40; if that is what you have, you are in a good position. If it is not, this option is mostly closed.
3. Give them away
Listing pallets online as giveaways works for a few dozen clean ones. It does not work for hundreds, for broken stock, or for anything a hobbyist cannot fit in a car, and the takers cherry pick the good ones and leave the rest. You are also inviting strangers onto your lot, which is worth a thought if it is an active dock.
4. Take them to a landfill or transfer station
Wood pallets are generally accepted at construction and demolition landfills and transfer stations. You pay by weight or by load and you do the hauling, which means a truck, a driver and a morning. Check with your county for what your local facility accepts and what it charges; some take clean wood separately at a lower rate.
5. Do not burn them
Open burning rules vary by county in Georgia and many metro counties restrict it. Painted, stained or chemically treated pallets should not be burned anywhere. Check with your county fire marshal before considering it, and for a business lot the answer is almost always no.
Before the pickup: three things that make it cheaper
Sort by size. Same size pallets stack and load together; mixed sizes do not, and every odd one is handled by hand.
Stack them. A loose pile takes twice as long to load as stacks of 15 to 20, and a yard prices time.
Keep them dry if you can. Wet pallets weigh more, and a pallet that has sat in the mud for a season is usually beyond repair, which turns a resellable pallet into scrap.
Small lots, mixed sizes and one time cleanouts
This is where most businesses get stuck. The big pallet buyers want clean standard pallets by the truckload. A back lot with 60 pallets in four sizes, half of them broken, is not that, and the buyers will not come. We collect exactly those: small lots, mixed and odd sizes, damaged stock, and one time cleanouts, across west Metro Atlanta and West Georgia, priced per site. We repair what we can and recycle most of the rest, so the pile does not go to a landfill. See pallet removal for how collections work and what moves the price.
Tell us roughly how many you have and where they are. Photos help but are not required: schedule a pickup.