Green Supply Chain: Making the case for wooden pallets.

Last week, I wrote about how the lowly caster was playing a starring role in lean manufacturing at KIA’s new assembly plant in West Point, Ga.

Today, Michael Smith, the COO of PALNET, a supplier of wooden pallets, made an equally bold assertion about another product you don’t give much thought to: Wooden pallets, Smith said, are eco-friendly and can enable a green supply chain.

His argument rests on the notion that when it comes to pallet selection, wooden pallets are greener than plastic pallets because they have the smaller eco-footprint or “environmental trail.” Here’s his pitch.

First, the competition: Plastic pallets, Smith contends, begin their life in an oil well, travel long distances in an oil tanker, then go through a manufacturing process with a heavy environmental footprint. Petroleum, after all, is the carbon in carbon footprint.

By contrast, Smith says, wooden pallets are made from the left-overs from the lumber process. A stand of hardwood trees, for instance, isn’t cut down to make pallets. Instead, those trees are harvested first for the high value grade lumber that goes into making furniture; lumber that doesn’t make the cut as furniture grade is turned into railroad ties. Pallets are made from what’s left, the lumber that might otherwise get turned into wood chips or sawdust or head for the scrap pile. “If that lumber didn’t get made into wooden pallets,” Smith says, “it would end up in an already overcrowded landfill.”

What’s more, for companies measuring the carbon footprint associated with getting parts, components and supplies from point A to point B, wooden pallets are typically manufactured within a few hundred miles from the markets where they’ll be used.

At the end of life, Smith adds, wooden pallets are often turned into garden mulch. 

“Can pallets save the planet?” Smith asks. That may be a bit much. And, I’m sure plastic pallet makers will take exception with Smith’s characterization of their product. But, like thinking about casters as an enabler of lean, looking at the wooden pallet as a green shipping platform is an interesting idea.