Sell your pallets in Jacksonville
Pallet buyers in Jacksonville pay for what sorts into reusable grades and cores, not for a pile. A stack is worth what is in it: its sizes, its grades, whether any of it is pooled, and how many.
What is worth selling
| Factor | Raises value | Lowers value |
|---|---|---|
| Size | 48 x 40, the most demanded | Odd or rare sizes |
| Grade | Grade A, sound Grade B | Grade C, broken |
| Condition | Dry, flat, no mould | Wet, soft, stained |
| Ownership | Owned by the seller | Pooled blue and red; not for sale |
| Count | A steady, repeating flow | A single scattered pile |
| Treatment | HT stamped for export | Unmarked wood |
Sorted Grade A and B 48x40s have the widest market. No price is quoted here, because a number would be wrong by the next load: market prices move with lumber costs and demand, and anyone who quotes a flat figure without seeing the sizes and grades is guessing.
Rain lowers the worth of a stack most. Left uncovered through a Florida summer, wood passes about 20% moisture content, stains and grows mould, and dark boards and soft wood make a buyer treat the stack as scrap. A dry tarp over it, air under it and a dry floor under that keep it sellable.
Three stacks show the range. A fulfillment dock at Cecil has 400 pallets, mostly 48x40, sorted under a roof: a buyer treats it as stock. A store behind a Southside shopping centre has 60 in the sun, half rotten: a removal job. A third stack of 120 mixed pallets on the Northside holds 20 HT-stamped ones, which have an export buyer while the rest go the ordinary route.
What to count before you ask
- Sizes: how many 48x40, and how many of anything else.
- Condition: rough shares of whole, repaired and broken.
- Anything stamped HT, because export stock has its own market.
- Pooled pallets, set aside and counted separately.
- How the stack sits: floor, trailer or racks, and whether a forklift is on hand.
A receiving manager on the Westside walks a yard with a clipboard: 600 pallets. Forty are blue and belong to a pool, so they come out. Of the remaining 560, about 380 are 48x40s, 90 are 48x48s from a chemical vendor and 90 are odd sizes, and among the 380 perhaps 150 are whole, 170 repaired and 60 broken. That count, in four lines, is a better request than "lots of pallets".
Cores
A core is a used pallet recovered for repair, resale, remanufacturing or recycling, and it is what most dock surplus is before anyone sorts it. A receiving dock collects pallets from every inbound trailer; by the end of a week there are 48x40s of every condition, some Grade A, many with a broken board, a few snapped stringers. A core is worth less than a repaired Grade B but more than scrap, and wood past repair is chipped for mulch, composite products or biomass (Racklify).
| Step | Result |
|---|---|
| Inspect | Cores split by size and damage |
| Repair | Plugs, plates or replaced boards make a Grade B |
| Dismantle | Good boards are saved for rebuilding |
| Grind | Wood past repair becomes mulch, composite or biomass feedstock |
A core buyer asks how many stacks, how high, whether they are loose or banded, whether a forklift is on hand and whether the gate takes a truck with a trailer. A steady dock should also note whether stringers or deck boards break more often. Cores pile up after peak seasons: a grocery dock after the holidays, a fulfillment building after the fourth quarter, a garden centre after spring, so a request just before the peak gives a buyer time to plan.
Mixed dock loads
A mixed dock load is more than one size or grade together. Inbound freight to a fulfillment building comes on whatever pallet the shipper had: mostly 48x40s, some 48x48s, a few Euro pallets from imported goods and a handful in blue or red. Cecil Commerce Center holds an Amazon fulfillment center of about 1 million square feet, with Bridgestone and Wayfair buildings of about the same size, and buildings like those are where mixed stacks come from. It sells as a mixed lot, or is sorted first.
- Pull the pooled pallets first. They are not surplus.
- Split by size: 48x40 in one stack, everything else in another.
- Within 48x40, set aside whole pallets, then repaired ones, then broken ones.
- Stack the broken ones apart so a buyer can see what is scrap.
A mixed load does not need sorting before the request; the shares of whole, repaired and broken matter more than a perfect count. A buyer who cannot visit asks for photographs: one wide shot of the pile, close-ups of the top deck, a bottom board and a stringer end, a typical repair, and a tape measure across a pallet.
Pooled pallets are not for sale
Blue CHEP and red PECO pallets belong to the rental company, which rents them to shippers and collects them from receivers. The pallet is the pool's property even on your dock, so selling one is selling something you do not own, and buyers who find them in a stack pull them out. Grocery and consumer-goods docks on the Westside get them in every trailer.
| Mark | What it means |
|---|---|
| Blue deck and stringers | CHEP pallet |
| Red deck and stringers | PECO pallet |
| Branded burn or stamp | Pool ownership, even on wood that is not coloured |
| Plain wood, ISPM 15 mark | Not pooled by colour; may still be a customer-owned pallet |
Stack them apart, count them by pool and use each pool's own pickup arrangement, and never paint over the markings. A store manager who finds 80 pallets behind the dock, 25 blue and 10 red, sends the plain ones down the sell or clear route and the rest back to their pools; a running tally of pooled pallets tells the pool how many to collect.
Selling a flow, not a stack
Fulfillment buildings at Cecil and Imeson take in hundreds of mixed pallets a week. For a flow like that the question is not one price but a rhythm: see scheduled dock pickups. Grocery and frozen docks, retail stores, manufacturers who receive on pallets but ship on their own, and contractors who get materials on skids all have surplus, and a back-lot stack of a few dozen counts too (small loads).
Questions
Who buys used pallets in Jacksonville?
Pallet recyclers and repair companies buy sorted grades and cores from docks and plants.
How much does a buyer pay?
No price is stated without the count, sizes and grades.
What is the difference between a core and Grade C?
A core has not been sorted yet. Grade C is a sorted grade that is already repaired and rough.
Can I sell CHEP or PECO pallets?
No. They belong to the pool. Return them through the pool's own arrangement.
Is a plain pallet with an unfamiliar brand pooled?
It might be. A branded deck means a rented or controlled pallet, so ask before selling.
Does heat treatment add value?
For export buyers, yes.
Keep reading
Sources, reviewed 12 November 2026: Core pallet (Racklify); Cecil Commerce Center (Wikipedia).