The Wall Street Journal does pallets and gets it right

The battle between wooden and plastic pallets - a fight as epic as the Hatfields and McCoys - landed on the front page of the Wall Street Journal today. Better yet, Loaded Issue: Pallet Makers Sling Mud Over Who’s Greenest, the article by Jennifer Levitz, is a great read.

Like the analysts and academics quoted in the article, I find it a sad battle. As most people know, I grew up in the wooden pallet industry. While most end users would love to get around pallets, there are few products in the supply chain as simple, inexpensive and effective as a wooden pallet for getting the job done. They’re almost elegant in their simplicity.

At the same time, I was impressed with the new plastic pallets introduced by Orbis and Rehrig Pacific at ProMat this past week, and I’m an admirer of the iGPS plastic pallet pool.

Let’s hope it’s over soon. In the meantime, if you want to read about how the battle lines have been drawn, check out Levitz’s article.