Sustainability
The circular economy, stacked on a truck
Sustainability at Evergrain isn’t a marketing layer — it’s the entire business model. Every pallet we keep in circulation is carbon avoided, wood saved, and money returned.
The short answer
Recycled pallets are one of the highest-leverage sustainability moves in logistics: each keeps ~40 lb of timber in use, avoids nearly all the embodied carbon of new wood, and stays out of landfill. Because a pallet can be repaired for 5–7 lives, the impact compounds — and unlike most green initiatives, it lowers cost at the same time.
Request a quote
Fill this out and we’ll reply by email with a plan and a price. It’s the same form you’ll find on every page — no phone tag required.
Model your impact
Put a number on it
See what your pallets could save
Drag the slider to your annual (or per-order) pallet volume and watch the environmental and financial upside of choosing recycled over new.
Estimates for illustration, based on industry averages for wood mass, embodied carbon, and pricing. Your actual figures depend on size, grade, and route.
Lock in these savingsHow we do it
Four ways we close the loop
Reuse before recycle
The greenest pallet is one already made. We repair and reuse first — grinding is the last resort, not the plan.
Landfill diversion
Keeping wood out of landfill avoids the methane it would release breaking down anaerobically. We divert the overwhelming majority of everything we collect.
Fewer empty miles
Backhaul routing pairs deliveries with pickups, cutting fuel and emissions from trucks that would otherwise return empty.
Reportable impact
We translate all of this into diversion tonnage and unit counts you can put straight into an ESG report or a retailer scorecard.
Our pledge
If a board can be reused, it will be. If a pallet can be repaired, it won’t be replaced. And if there’s a lower-carbon option that still does the job, that’s the one we’ll recommend.
Learn the details in our guides on recycled-pallet sustainability and how recycling works.
Where the carbon hides
Why a recycled pallet is so much lighter on the planet
Almost all of a new pallet’s footprint is spent before it ever carries a load. Recycling skips those stages — a repaired pallet is reused, not remade.
Harvesting & hauling logs
Cutting, collecting, and transporting fresh timber to the mill is energy-intensive — and it is entirely avoided when a pallet is repaired instead of built new.
Kiln drying & milling
Drying green lumber and cutting it to size consumes significant energy. Reclaimed boards are already dried and dimensioned.
Nailing & assembly
A repair replaces a board or two; a new build fabricates the entire unit. Less material worked means less energy and less waste.
End-of-life methane
Wood buried in landfill breaks down and releases methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Keeping it in service — or grinding it for mulch and biomass — avoids that entirely.
The honest version
What we won’t pretend
Recycling isn’t infinite
Wood fibers wear out. After five to seven lives, a pallet’s useful structure is gone — and that’s the point at which we grind it for mulch or biomass rather than force another repair.
New wood has a place
Export, precision automation, and the heaviest loads sometimes need fresh lumber. We say so, source it responsibly, and design to the lightest safe spec.
Plastic isn’t the villain — or the hero
In tight, hygienic closed loops, plastic can be the greener call over many cycles. In open systems where it’s lost, recycled wood wins. Context decides, not slogans.
FAQ
Sustainability questions
How do recycled pallets reduce carbon?
They skip the emissions of harvesting, drying, and milling new lumber. Because a pallet is repaired rather than remade, each additional life it serves avoids nearly all the embodied carbon of buying new.
Can you give me data for ESG reporting?
Yes. Managed accounts receive periodic summaries of units recovered and estimated tonnage diverted from landfill, formatted for sustainability and Scope 3 reporting.
What happens to pallets that can’t be reused?
Only genuinely end-of-life wood is ground down — into landscape mulch, animal bedding, or biomass fuel. It is recovered, not landfilled.
Turn sustainability into a line item that saves money
Buy, sell, recycle, or haul — start with a fast, no-obligation quote and we’ll take it from there.