| Virginia Tech publishes pallet sustainability guidance The Center for Packaging and Unit Load Design (CPULD) at Virginia Tech, USA, has published a white paper entitled ‘Pallets make the world go round’, with the explainer that this examines ‘circular versus linear economies and their effects on the pallet industry’. There are, says CPULD, some 2.6 billion pallets circulating in the US alone. The paper begins by chastising those companies which only look at “the front end of their processes” and by extolling the virtues of a circular economy. There are, it says, good economic as well as environmental justifications for such a move. Pallets are “unique”, it goes on, in that they can be part of both technical and biological circular economies. By this it means that, while plastics and metal pallets can be recycled back into material for new pallets, wooden pallets can be “bio-cycled” through a process of biodegradation. As a part of this approach, the paper advocates the use of timber from certified forests. Meanwhile, CPULD has been working with the National Wooden Pallet and Container Association (NWPCA) in areas including the interaction between drums and pallets, as a contribution to optimizing pallet design. Published: 10/30/19 |