Hauling off wood freight pallets

[oceanobob]

Since we had the reachlift on the job to finish the loading docks (after we changed out the floor - ref: R&R warehouse floor) we were assigned to clean the yard. We worked the reachlift (forks as well slings to up n over) and a forklift and stacked "steel scrap", "maybe keep this", and "lets see if we can sell it" in three areas on the compacted road base gravel yard area. From the a/c area we got about two big rubbish containers of old cardboard boxes, old dunnage with termites LOL, etc etc. Thinking we were done, they asked if we could also get rid of their pallet collections. There is one pallet style that hasn't the three 2x4 'rails', it instead has little blocks of wood. They say those are worthless and the local Pallet King wont take anymore of those for any price. Then there are the old weather beaten w/ twisted wood hard as steel pallets and the Pallet King will take those for a buck each. We cant give them away to burn on the beach cause they have nails in em.

Well one rubbish can was about half full so we decided to see how it worked out to densify the materials by cutting them using a skilsaw and some old blades. Nice and dense load, but a lot of labor.

If we hire a low bed, the pallets are so shot out they dont stack really at all and loading em to 14' above the highway is quite squirrelly and tedious/frustrating for the forklifts and the operators; and we also have to unload the low bed at the trash facility. For sure the end dump guys want the work but their rigs all have very round bottoms and not too tall the sides. Only one trucking outfit has a true "massive demo end dump box" with high sides and a tight radius bend at the floor and they will be available for the scrap steel haul off. Takes them an hour to get to the job so that will about pay for a rubbish can / demo box (not counting tip fee).

The latest idea is to load the pallets into the rubbish can with the reachfork: we can get 5 rows of 2 ore about ten stacks about 7' tall in there (about 140 pallets). Takes about 90 mins to load it - for a couple reasons. The stacks are terrible and sluggo has to be utilized to straighten em up once in the can, and the reachfork carriage is way too wide for this so have to "one fork the stack". Doable but cant be in a hurry. Gotta stay smoooooth. Some single jack / sluggo / bar work occasionally, some hand stacking to resolve short stacks.... but that is about the effort.

Two gone this manner and about 4 more cans to get the rest of the sordid pallets off to the trash place. Hate paying to haul air .... but for this job, this will have to be the solution.

Never know in this business what the next job will entail. LOL.

 

[Ronsii]

Put a sign out front.... 'FREE fire wood u cut'

Yeah, I've seen different guys around some of the warehouse areas we work trying to put rows of pallets into cans.. usually the stack will tip right at the most inopportune time and then you mess with it for a while before deciding to go in by hand and try to restack on the forks... then that don't work so you pull that row back out and then restack it for another try I think a mid sized wood chipper would work... or once when we had a couple thousand weather beaten pallets to demo we started running the 120 over them along with crunching and munching came out pretty good except for a few longer spars some of the odd sized long pallets had in them.

 

[thepumpguysc]

I see your on Cali.. so a gas can & a match is WAY out of the question..
Running them over is a good idea except for the "nails"..
I like the free firewood idea.. put an ad on craigslist {free} in the farm & garden section & the "free" section.

 

[John C.]

The next project I have on the board is to get a portable shredder working. This kind of thing would be perfect for the pallets. It is on a trailer with a fifth wheel and air brakes. Diesel powered and will shred anything from appliances to tires to most demolition debris. If someone in the area has something like this your hauling air problem would go away. I know of another company that is in that business using a Universal Refiner chipper shredder that they move around for these types of jobs. They have magnets on the out feed belts that catch a drop the nails to be sold as scrap.

 

[Wes J]

The pallet recycling companies here will take them. If you have enough, they will pick them up. They keep the standard 42x48 inch pallets. The odd ones they grind into chips and sell as mulch.

 

[oceanobob]

The big shredders (portable) are kept busy with land clearing issues, or they are located at "recycler" yards and no longer portable...so we just kept loading the bin every day after regular work and I got it down to where one person (me and the reachlift) could load the bin in about an hour and a half which includes hand stacking in the bin since the pallet stacks aren't pretty. We were able to negotiate a 'wood rate' and the disposal company provided a slightly better rate for the bins.
Yesterday was the 8th container and the first couple containers were trash (items other than old shot out pallets). I had figured maybe four containers for the pallets but they dug out some more stacks and that made it about five or six relegated to the old pallets.
Considering they have collected some of these poor condition pallets for quite a few/several years, this 'once in a blue moon' project is about completed. Their yard looks much bigger now LOL. Once these rubbish containers are gone, then we will have room for parking either an end dump or similar containers for some metal items such as old pipe, air handling units, compressors and a couple motors.
Different companies are involved in metal scrap vs rubbish/debris and also vary amongst themselves with different rules - some require id and jobsite validation with the property owner, others just rely on the trip ticket; some haul, some don't. It doesn't sit real well as to paying for a parked semi truck while we struggle to load the trailer against time [and there is the driver helping by watching and smoking cigarettes LOL]. I am certainly not against the trucking company getting their revenue; it is up to me to figure the best way for my customer - but that big long high side end dump volume is much bigger than any rolloff. It seems, as usual, it boils down to the cost of the labor with its attendant overheads.
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Will have to call around next week to see what I can arrange as our reachforklift is needed elsewhere.

 

[Bls repair]

What we do on job sites is take a hoe and smash the dumpster down . Hire a machine and operator for a day . Load them up
and smash them down