TL;DR
If you have more than about fifty pallets in usable condition, a pallet recycler will often pick them up for free, and some will pay a small amount per pallet. Broken or small quantities usually get hauled, and junk removal nationally runs $150 to $350 per load for most homeowners. Burning pallets is a bad idea, and the stamp on the side tells you why.
Pallets are the classic accumulating commercial junk. They arrive with every delivery, they stack behind the building, and nobody owns the decision to deal with them until the stack becomes a fire code problem or blocks a dock door.
What Do You Do With Old Pallets?
There are four real paths, in order of preference: return them to a pallet recycler for reuse, give them away for repurposing, grind them into mulch or biomass fuel, or haul them to disposal. Whole undamaged pallets in standard sizes are worth the most. Broken pallets with cracked stringers and missing deck boards are worth the least, but even those grind into usable wood fiber.
The single biggest factor is condition, and the second is quantity. Both determine whether someone comes to you or you pay someone to come.
Free and Paid Pickup Programs
Pallet recyclers operate in nearly every industrial region. They collect used pallets, repair the fixable ones, remanufacture parts into new pallets, and grind the rest. Because reusable pallets have value, many will collect at no charge, and some pay a modest per-pallet rate for standard sizes in good shape.
What they want: standard 48 by 40 inch four-way pallets, block pallets, and consistent stacks of a single size. What they do not want: one-off custom sizes, pallets soaked in oil or chemicals, pallets with heavy nail damage, and stacks mixed with trash, banding, and shrink wrap.
The threshold usually starts around fifty pallets for free pickup, because below that the truck trip does not pay. If you are under that number and generate pallets steadily, ask about a scheduled monthly collection instead of a one-time call.
Reading the Stamp
Look at the stringer, the thick board on the side. Most international pallets carry an IPPC stamp with treatment letters, and those letters change what you should do with the wood.
HT means heat treated. The wood was heated to kill pests, no chemicals involved. HT pallets are safe for reuse projects, safe to grind into mulch, and safe to burn in an appropriate appliance.
MB means methyl bromide fumigated. That is a pesticide treatment, now phased out in many places but still found on older pallets. Do not use MB pallets for furniture, garden beds, animal bedding, or firewood. Send them to a recycler that handles treated wood.
An unstamped pallet is almost always domestic and untreated, which is fine for reuse. What no stamp tells you is what the pallet carried. A pallet that hauled drums of solvent is contaminated regardless of treatment. If there is a chemical smell or a visible stain, treat it as contaminated wood, not clean wood.
Why Burning Pallets Is Usually the Wrong Call
Burning looks like the free option and it is the one that causes problems. Nails stay in the ash and end up in the soil or a tire. Painted and stained pallets release fumes. MB-treated wood should never be burned. Many jurisdictions prohibit open burning of any dimensional lumber, and a burn pile of a hundred pallets is well past a recreational fire.
In a clean-wood woodstove or an outdoor fireplace, a few HT pallets with the nails pulled are fine. That is a very different thing from clearing a pallet stack by torching it out back.
The better path for broken wood is grinding. Ground pallet wood becomes landscape mulch, animal bedding, particleboard feedstock, or biomass boiler fuel, and that stream is well established. The same logic covers other clean lumber, which our guide to scrap wood disposal options works through.
What Bulk Pallet Removal Costs
Industry Baseline Range
| What is being priced | Published national range |
|---|---|
| Junk removal, what most homeowners spend per load | $150 to $350 |
| Junk removal, full national range | $70 to $570 |
Source: HomeGuide, "Junk Removal Prices" national cost guide.
These are industry baseline ranges for planning only and may not reflect Otesse's price. Otesse pricing is calculated for your specific home and ZIP code, so enter your ZIP in the price box on this page for your instant price.
Current Market Reality
Quotes run higher when pallets are broken and cannot be stacked tightly, because a jumbled pile takes two to three times the truck space of a neat stack. Costs also rise when the stack is soaked from sitting outside, since wet wood weighs far more and disposal is billed by the ton. Standard commercial junk removal cost factors like dock access and after-hours scheduling apply here too.
| Pushes the price up | Pulls it down |
|---|---|
| Broken pallets that will not stack | A neat, tight stack |
| Soaked, heavy wood | Dry pallets |
| Dock access problems or after-hours scheduling | Easy daytime access |
| A one-off call | A recurring pickup |
Every load is different, so the real number depends on volume, weight, access, and what is in the pile. Enter your ZIP in the price box on this page for your instant price.
Managing an Ongoing Pallet Problem
If pallets keep arriving, a one-time haul solves nothing. Three habits fix the recurring version.
Stack by size and condition as they come off the truck rather than throwing them on one pile. Sorted stacks are what makes free recycler pickup possible. Keep the stack under the height your fire code allows and away from the building wall, because pallet stacks against a structure are a common code violation.
Then set a schedule. A monthly or quarterly pickup costs less per pallet than an emergency call when the yard is full, and it keeps the dock clear. Facilities that also accumulate cardboard, banding, and damaged product usually fold pallets into a broader warehouse cleanout rhythm.
It is also worth knowing where the material ends up. Our overview of what happens to junk after pickup explains how wood gets separated from landfill-bound loads.
FAQ
Will anyone take pallets for free?
Yes, if you have enough of them in reusable condition. Pallet recyclers commonly collect fifty or more standard-size pallets at no charge, and some pay a small per-pallet rate. Broken pallets and small quantities usually do not qualify, because the pickup costs more than the wood is worth.
Can I put pallets out for curbside pickup?
Almost never. Municipal curbside programs exclude construction and shipping materials, and a stack of pallets will be left behind. Some transfer stations accept clean wood at a per-ton rate if you haul it yourself. Otherwise, use a recycler or a private pickup.
Is it safe to build furniture from old pallets?
Only from HT stamped or unstamped domestic pallets that show no stains or chemical smell. Avoid any pallet marked MB, and avoid any pallet that carried chemicals, food waste, or unknown liquids. Sand and seal the wood, and pull every nail before cutting.
How much does a wood pallet weigh?
A standard 48 by 40 inch hardwood pallet weighs roughly 30 to 50 pounds dry. Wet pallets that have sat outside can weigh half again as much. That matters because disposal is billed by weight, so a rained-on stack costs more to dump than the same stack under cover.
Can I recycle a broken pallet?
Yes. Broken pallets are ground into mulch, animal bedding, or biomass fuel, and recyclers accept them at lower or zero value rather than refusing them. The wood still stays out of the landfill. Just keep them separate from treated or painted lumber, which goes to a different stream.
Getting Them Hauled Away
When the stack has grown past what a recycler will take for free, one clean pickup resets the yard. Otesse can load pallets, split reusable from broken, and route the wood to the right facility through our junk removal service. Reach out to get a quote with an approximate pallet count.
