Our material

Our Material: Recycled HDPE

Manufactured from post-use plastic, APS pallets are engineered for decades of use, recovery, and reuse.

Recycled, Post-Consumer And Post-Industrial HDPE

APS turns post-use plastic into durable, reusable pallets designed for repeated trips, long service life, and end-of-life recovery.

Moisture And Pest-Resistant

APS plastic pallets will not absorb water, rot, or harbor bacteria under normal use. They are spray-down ready and require little drying time.

10X Longer Service Life Than Wood

Roughly 100 to 200+ trips before recycling, against about 3 to 5 for white wood and about 15 for pooled hardwood. APS actively reduces material and waste events in the supply chain.

Non-Porous HDPE

Non-porous, washable, and contamination-resistant by design. Unlike wood, HDPE is ISPM 15 exempt and so requires no heat treatment or fumigation.

Keep readingWhy Plastic Our Technology

The scale of the problem

Every Year, Wood Pallets Consume 157 Manhattans Of Forest

Around 500 million wood pallets are produced each year in the U.S. The industry consumes 17.9 billion board feet of lumber, which corresponds to forest acreage 157 times the size of Manhattan. Wood pallets remain the default across many supply chains, but their true cost includes habitat loss, breakage, landfill disposal, and limited visibility after they leave the dock.

38.6%of all sawn softwood is used for pallet production in the U.S.

77%of lumber used for wood pallets was knowingly not certified-sustainable

37.6%of all sawn hardwood is used for pallet production in the U.S.

13%of all new pallets are disposed of in landfills annually, roughly 66.7 million pallets per year

Sources: LeDoux et al. (2001); Hobbs, Horvath and Gething (2025); USDA Southern Research Station.

Lifecycle

Lifecycle Comparison: Wood vs. Plastic

From sourcing to end-of-life, explore how APS recycled HDPE stacks up against wood.

Creation

	APS: Recycled HDPE	White Wood	Pooled Wood
Material Source	100% recycled HDPE	Virgin softwood lumber	Virgin hardwood lumber
Border Compliance	ISPM 15 exempt, no treatment needed	Heat treatment or fumigation required	Heat treatment or fumigation required

Supply Chain

	APS: Recycled HDPE	White Wood	Pooled Wood
Trips Per Lifecycle	10 to 200+ before recycling	3 to 5 before disposal	About 15 before disposal
Sanitation	Non-porous, spray-down friendly	Sanitizable only via intensive, multi-step process	Sanitizable only via intensive, multi-step process
Structural Integrity	Consistent	Degrades with every use	Repairs decrease official pallet grade
Visibility & Data	Full sensor suite: real-time location and condition	No visibility	Basic RFID in select programs

End-Of-Life

	APS: Recycled HDPE	White Wood	Pooled Wood
Recovery Model	100% retrieval capabilities	Discarded at destination	More than 1/10 lost, scrapped, or abandoned
Material Fate	Back into the APS HDPE stream	Mulch or landfill (methane-generating)	Mulch or landfill (methane-generating)
Customer Cost Exposure	All-inclusive monthly lease	Predictable cost, frequent replacement	Complex fees with chargeback exposure

Emissions Reporting

	APS: Recycled HDPE	White Wood	Pooled Wood
Scope 3	No manufacturing emissions or waste	Manufacturing emissions and waste	Partial ownership of emissions

Recycling capability

Our Recycling Capabilities

60 Million lbs.of plastic recycled and reprocessed per year

240,000 lbs. in 24 Hoursat our in-house recycling facilities

88.5%of our manufacturing is powered by renewable energy

Smart Pallets Made For Closed-Loop Recovery

End-of-life retrieval: APS pallets are designed to come back, be recovered, and re-enter the material stream instead of becoming another disposal event.

An APS recycled HDPE pallet, designed to be recovered and reused

Measured, not estimated

Pallet-Level Visibility Across Every Mile

APS smart pallets generate real-time data on location and condition, giving teams visibility that wood pallets and basic RFID programs simply cannot produce, through the product journey.

Full Embedded Sensor Suite

An automotive-grade sensor suite on every single pallet: GPS, temperature, humidity, shock and tamper, all visualized on the Pulse platform.

Full Fleet Visibility

Always know where the fleet is, how long it has been there, and where it is headed next.

A Measured Category 9 Number

This is what converts Category 9, Downstream Transport, from an estimate into a measured, defensible number.

The Contrast Point

Wood that you own has no pallet-level data at all, so emissions are estimated rather than measured. Pooled wood has RFID tags at best, with zero condition visibility.

Disclosure

Better Smart Pallet Data For Scope 3 Emissions Reporting

As climate disclosure requirements expand, companies need better data from the supply chain assets moving through their networks. APS helps turn pallet movement, use, recovery, and lifecycle activity into more measurable sustainability inputs.

SB 253 California

Companies $1B+ doing business in CA must publicly disclose Scope 1-3 emissions annually.

PenaltyUp to $500k/year

Scope 1-22026

Scope 32027

SB 261 California

Companies $500M+ doing business in CA must publicly disclose climate-related financial risk.

PenaltyUp to $50k/year

Timber supply chains at risk as deforestation regulations tighten

S9072A New York

Companies $1B+ doing business in NY must publicly disclose climate-related financial risk annually.

PenaltyUp to $500k/year

Scope 1-22028

Scope 32029

California's SB 253 requires large companies doing business in the state to disclose Scope 1, Scope 2, and Scope 3 emissions on a phased timeline. Move your pallets off your balance sheet, and off your emissions sheet.

Calculate your pallet emissions exposure

FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

Are plastic pallets more sustainable than wood?

Plastic pallets can be more sustainable when they are made from recycled material, used repeatedly, recovered at end of life, and kept in a closed loop. All four conditions have to hold, which is what an APS managed program is built to guarantee.

What makes a pallet a sustainable pallet?

Sustainable pallets are pallets designed to reduce waste, extend service life, support reuse, and minimize end-of-life disposal. The strongest programs pair a durable material with a recovery route, so the asset comes back rather than being replaced.

What are recycled HDPE pallets, and where do they come from?

Recycled HDPE pallets are plastic pallets made from high-density polyethylene that has already been used in another application. APS uses post-consumer and post-industrial material, processed through our own recycling operation.

How do pallets affect our Scope 3 emissions?

Pallets can affect Scope 3 emissions through purchased goods, transportation, waste, reuse, and end-of-life handling. Better pallet data can help companies move Category 9 from an estimate to a measured figure.

What is a closed-loop pallet system?

A closed-loop pallet system is a model where pallets are recovered after use, reused when possible, and recycled back into the material stream at end of life, rather than leaving the network and being bought again.

How do smart pallets support sustainability goals?

Smart pallets support sustainability by tracking movement, dwell time, location, condition, and recovery. This helps reduce loss, unnecessary replacement, and the emissions attached to both.

Third-party standing

Certifications And Associations

ASTM InternationalStandards body for material and performance test methods.

Institute for Supply ManagementISM, the professional body for supply management.

ISO 9001:2015Quality management system certification.

Reusable Packaging AssociationThe trade association for reusable transport packaging.

Talk to an APS expert

Ready To See What A Tracked Fleet Would Tell You?

Send us the lanes, the volumes and the compliance regime you answer to. An APS expert comes back with a program scoped to your operation, not a generic deck.

Let's Talk

Sustainable Pallets