Pallet Applications and Purposes

For as long as memory serves, pallets have been the means for transporting, stacking, storing, et cetera (handling) a variety of loads. Everywhere in the world and in many sorts of operations, some form of pallet is (re)used in one way or another.

There is one element that pallets have had in common throughout the years, which is that they are made of wood, whereby many types of wood are used. In addition, a form of standardisation has evolved in working with pallets, particularly when fork-lift trucks, pallet wagons and similar vehicles and machinery are used.

Over the years, the dimensional characteristics of pallets have been derived from, for one, the internal dimensions of trucks and containers. In their turn, these dimensions are based on the infrastructure around us, such as the width of roads, the height of viaducts, and so on. The standard dimensions of pallets are therefore more or less imposed by the evolution of our own infrastructure.

In the world of cargo transport, wooden pallets have played an extremely prominent part for a long time. The characteristics of wood are sufficiently well known, and, of old, they have made wood the preferred material for the production of pallets.

Despite the fact that wooden pallets have become so ingrained, people have been looking for alternatives for a long time, for a variety of reasons. Quite often, cheaper alternatives are considered, also the use of wooden pallets for transportation and storage has sometimes proven to be unsuccessful, once the cargo reaches its destination.

A great deal of time, money and energy has been invested in the (re)use of pallets, deposit money systems, maintenance and repairs, and pallet pooling. Although many systems have been created and tested, many worries and dilemmas still remained, often because the continuously decreasing margins on products and cargo transport have resulted in an increased cost price share of pallets in cargo transport.

In addition, an increasing number of countries have set requirements and standards for the export and/or import of wooden pallets, for example to prevent the spread of diseases or vermin (pests). Particularly the latter aspect has resulted in wooden pallets becoming increasingly unattractive as far as price is concerned, also because of the costs involved in pre-treating them (degassing/heat treatment).

Alternatives
In order to be able to comply with the ISPM 15 ( International Phytosanitary Standard for Wood Packaging) standard, alternative pallet materials are used. Plastic pallets – whether recycled or not – and even pallets completely made of cardboard have been introduced into the market.

In their quest for a solution, many companies of sufficient size have chosen for their own approach to the wood problem by, for example, deploying small metal trolleys in the food stuffs chain, as wooden pallets (which are often polluted) are no longer adequate or permitted in many food-related businesses.

For transport companies involved in export and containers, space (volume) is an important consideration. As the load rate has a profound effect on cargo costs, the sector has searched for the ultimate money-saver, by no longer making use of pallets. Instead of using pallets, loading is done either separately by hand or by means of so-called slipsheets. Slipsheets are mostly used in cardboard versions, but plastic (PE) versions are also available.

Use of pallets/costs/disadvantages
Due to the wide variety of pallet materials – resulting from the cost aspect for each separate form of use – it seems practically impossible to make a comparison. Here too, the market mechanism has left its marks and for various applications pallets have been developed which meet specific demands. See table on the SLIPSHEET
ADVANTAGES page.

Pallet Sizes
Pallets vary in size as a result of different applications. These are examples of common standard sizes:

To be complete, it should be noted that for both wooden and plastic pallets, a height of between 13 and 17 cm is to be observed, depending on the construction. The height of pallets is an important load-limiting factor for voluminous transports.

These disadvantages do not, or hardly, apply to Slipsheets, due to their much smaller height.

Considerations
Considering all of the above, the following question can be posed:

Is there an alternative to the existing pallets, which can be an improvement in each and every way and involves many advantages?

Any alternative should meet the following demands:

Although it would not meet an economical demand, it would be a splendid ecological bonus if the contemplated alternative makes a significant contribution to a sub-solution for a growing (in the literal and figurative sense) environmental problem.

The Good News
A patented application has been developed by GTA Innovation cv, which meets the above mentioned economical demands and also provides an ecological bonus:

the
Recycled Rubber Slipsheet.