Plastic pallets from virgin polymers have been around for quite some time but their share of the total pallet market is insignificant since they are much more expensive. In fact, the plastic pallets, therefore, have not developed significant volumes.

Plastic pallets from recycled Polyolefins have also been around for some time without much success. The Association of Plastics Manufacturers in Europe (APME) has financed the development work on pallets mainly from recycled HDPE bottle grade blended with some amount of PP. These have been used by some of the leading members of APME like BASF and they have found them to be lighter and tougher than wood. These pallets are self-stackable and can take load of about 1.5 tonnes of polymers.

There is however only one problem that these pallets have to be returned to achieve the desired cost economy. This problem therefore restricts their usage only for short distances. It is estimated that almost 0.5 million pallets from recycled polymers have been used in Germany alone in 2000. Interestingly Remplan, Germany has recently developed pallets from mixed recycled PET by the use of transfer moulding. The future of pallets from recycled plastics attaining wider acceptance, would essentially depend upon their cost benefit compared to the wooden pallets.