How do you recycle your bubblewrap and wooden pallets?

Question

What are other businesses doing with their pallets and their bubblewrap? Inconsistent amounts of each, sometimes a large trashbag or 3 per day of bubblewraps,sometimes one a week,1-10 pallets a week. It seems like such a waste on so many levels. Ideas?

Answer 1

Wrap the former around the latter, it'll save having to sort them . At the recycling center sell the wrapped pallets aas bubble wrap. You'll make a fortune and they'll never know !

Answer 2

arrange colllection of the pallets, if they are reuseable. people buy and sell them here in uk its a nice little side line for some truck drivers. otherwise maybe find someone local who would use them for fuel, or even reusing the wood.

bubble wrap? when i worked for a small goods in, we stored it and reused it as packaging. i'm sure you could get someone from a smaller company to take that as well,if thats not appropriate.

put an advert out on craigs list and freecycle?

Answer 3

My husbands boss has been giving pallets to bring home.  We are using them for projects around the house, and at our civic center.  We take them apart and use the wood.

Answer 4

i collect pallets and take them to a pallet manufacturer, he strips the broken ones and makes new ones, in return he gives me a trailer load of waste offcuts which are just right for burning in the stove without having to saw them up. very green!.

as for the bubble wrap, you could drop it in at your local stress clinic. hmmmm

Answer 5

pallets can be re-used or burned for heat. bubblewrap can be re-used but is non-recyclable

Answer 6

Sadly pallets are swamping the UK right now. EVERYONE, it seems, is trying to get rid of them, at least those we deal with on a day-to-day basis. Some of the smaller ones we cut up and use the cross struts for chopping into kindling. The larger ones we again strip the cross struts and the under beams and sell those on to DIY people and self-employed builders/carpenters, joiners etc. Most, however, we take to a major wood recycler in the area and they are chipped up and used in the manufacture of chipboard, OSB, MDF and the like but from a financial point of view, they are pretty much worthless these days sadly. If it were not so, we would sell them on but it's simply financially not worth it.

Hope that helps

Nick (volunteer worker and director - Timber Recycling in Manchester)