The NAPD has criticised the move of four of the 50 states of America to attempt to stop the use of pallets made from sawn timber in those states. These US States claim that the heat treatment in ISPM 15 is ineffective in preventing pests from entering the US and that the other treatment permitted - methyl bromide - is an ozone-damaging gas. They argue that plastic or plywood pallets are free of forest pests and better for America.

This attack on timber ignores the fact that the USA Plant Protection Organisation participated in the creation of ISPM 15 and that they and the adjacent countries of Canada and Mexico have already implemented it and the US will participate in any future review of these measures. Additionally, wooden packing entering countries requiring ISPM 15 is subject to spot checks at any time and any infringement can easily be traced back to its origins. With regard to methyl bromide the timber industry has already largely moved away from this and increasingly uses heat treatment. The aim is to cease to use methyl bromide and to this end production of the gas has already ceased in Western countries.

A switch to plywood or plastic pallets is not the universal panacea suggested. Plywood may make a good looking pallet, but, on a first cost basis, plywood is not economic even within the USA for several reasons. Firstly standard plywood sheets do not fit well with standard pallet sizes thus creating offcut waste and secondly volume-for-volume it is weaker in bending strength than same-species sawn timber. Also plywood from some developing countries is produced without the kiln drying of veneers and high glue bond curing temperatures necessary to eliminate pests, and yet, under ISPM 15 no heat treatment of plywood is required. Furthermore in many developing nations plywood made with a waterproof adhesive is only available as an import, something which the developing nations with their own forests try to avoid. Plastic pallets are just as prohibitive for these nations on availability and cost grounds.

Sawn timber used in the packaging and pallet industry originates from managed forests where more trees are planted than are cut down. This compares with the manufacture of plastic pallets with its use of oil and fossil fuels which is depleting finite resources.

One of the research methods used to give an unemotional measure of the comparative “greenness” of pallets is Life Cycle Analysis (LCA). The Dutch organisation EPV working with TNO/Centre for Timber Research performed an LCA in which reusable wooden pallets were compared with reusable plastic pallets and more recently the results of a French LCA on the same subjects was published. This research was commissioned by the French Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Health and conducted by ECOBILAN and the CTBA wood research institute. Both studies indicate that the use of wood as a raw material in pallets has a positive environmental balance over plastics.

NAPD Secretary Paul Tait said, “Our members repair, recycle and treat pallets to the highest international phytosanitary standards. The promotion by certain US states of plastic pallets by attempting to eliminate sawn timber is unrealistic in a country that produces some 200 million pallets of its own each year. Cutting down trees from managed forests and processing wood has a very low environmental impact and we strongly support the US wood pallet trade and their trade body the NWPCA in its efforts to fend off this legal challenge”.

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The NAPD (National Association of Pallet Distributors) is ready to face the increased demand for heat treatment to ISPM 15 with a countrywide network of strategically located heat treatment centres. To ensure maximum countrywide coverage, members already accredited within the UK wood marking programme have agreed to provide facilities for other NAPD members in their locality.

The current adoption or imminent adoption of ISPM 15 by Argentina, Australia, Canada, Chile, India, Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, Nigeria, Peru, Philippines, South Africa, Turkey and USA has led the NAPD to create this countrywide network.

Apart from the environmental and efficiency doubts held by some countries on gas fumigation, heat treatment has an advantage over methyl bromide in that it can be used without damaging shipped products. It is known that methyl bromide fumigant residues can damage photographic supplies, some metals, electronic components, fine papers, leather, pure rubber, angora wool and some plastics. Recognising this, many national defence services across the world have adopted the heat treatment part of ISPM 15, an example is the UK Ministry of Defence who are currently issuing amended specifications for their pallet designs.

Paul Tait, NAPD Secretary, said “Our members repair and recycle pallets to the highest standards. Only companies agreeing to meet high standards are admitted to membership. The services provided by NAPD members include heat treatment, sales of new and used pallets, pallet repair services, packing cases, export packing, potato boxes, factory clearance and wood waste disposal.”

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The question is frequently asked whether ISPM 15 treatment of a timber pallet is permanent,
or does it have to be retreated from time to time? NAPD spokesman Greg Milton gave the answers.

“A used pallet properly treated and marked by a registrant of the Forestry Commission Wood Marking Programme that does not need to be repaired does not have to be re-treated. Heat or fumigation treatment to ISPM 15 is a one time permanent treatment.”

“NAPD members can supply used pallets either untreated, but bark free, for use within the UK or EU countries’ borders or treated to meet ISPM 15 requirements. Pallets treated in the UK to ISPM 15 requirements are marked with the unique number of the registrant of the Forestry Commission wood marking programme to ensure traceability. Many countries operate a treatment and marking programme similar to the UK programme whereby each pallet can be traced back to a particular country and manufacturer.”

“If untreated used pallets meet all the size and strength requirements of the customer but have not been heat treated or fumigated then if needed they can be treated by a registrant of the UK Marking Programme. Customers need to be aware that some countries (eg. Brazil, China) have not accepted ISPM 15 as it stands and impose additional or in the case of Brazil quite different requirements. NAPD members can supply pallets to those requirements as well.”

For users concerned that old timber pallets are weaker than new pallets, recent USA research reported earlier in PAC showed that the average used pallet is 13% stronger than new. The explanation for this is that air drying (seasoning) during usage increases the wood strength. An added bonus with used timber pallets is that they carry no obligation under the Packaging Waste Regulations.

NAPD spokesman, Greg Milton added: “The NAPD was founded 15 years ago to promote the repair and recycling of pallets to the highest standards. Only companies agreeing to meet these standards are admitted to membership. The services provided by NAPD members include sales of new and used pallets, pallet repair services, heat treatment, packing cases, export packing, factory clearance and wood waste disposal.”

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NAPD has noted the current upsurge of interest in hygiene control in the production of packaging for foodstuffs. Early last year the British Retail Consortium published their "Standard for Companies manufacturing and supplying food packaging materials for retailer branded products - Management of hygiene in the production of packaging for foodstuffs". This was not the first such standard as Denmark already had a national standard on food hygiene and ISO also started work at the same time. In a more material specific sense Europe, through CEN, was already well advanced in the need to monitor migration of chemicals through plastic and foil into food. However the BRC concept of management of hygiene was a new one to the UK.

NAPD has welcomed the new pallet testing standard EN ISO 8611-1: 2004 Pallets for materials handling - Flat pallets - Part 1: test methods, just published. This revision of the 1989 standard has taken 15 years for international committees to develop and agree upon, but the experience of the pallet making and using industry was that the old standard had been too rigorous and failed too many good designs of pallets. The new version has taken account of this and reduced certain test loads, one example is the common UK 9-block 1000 x 1200 pallet which now has to sustain 24 % less applied load during testing.

This standard for new pallets complements the existing European Standard for pallet repair EN ISO 18613: 2003: Pallets for materials handling - repair of flat wooden pallets. Now the entire European pallet industry - new and used - has an effective measurement of quality.

Paul Tait, Secretary of the NAPD (National Association of Pallet Distributors) said “We already know that well maintained secondhand pallets will have no difficulty in meeting these new European requirements, since a study in the USA showed that pallets made entirely from recycled wood free from damage or decay were on average 11% stronger than pallets made from fresh undried timber. There must be few man made materials which actually get stronger with age”.

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Recent claims that it is better to use plastic pallets for exporting overseas because of scares over forest pests in wood pallets have been criticised by the NAPD (National Association of Pallet Distributors) particularly in view of the fact that the advent of ISPM 15 is introducing quarantine treatments and requirements that can apply universally.

Following a limited survey of the used pallet supply market in 2003, the NAPD (National Association of Pallet Distributors) has now completed a more extensive study. The statistics make for grim reading in that their revised estimate is that 7.5 million pallets have been lost to the UK reuse market due mainly to landfill and premature chipping.

Since wooden packaging was included in the scope of the Packaging & Packaging Waste Regulations in 2000 the NAPD (National Association of Pallet Distributors) have witnessed several factors, which when combined have reduced the national non-hire secondhand pallet pool by around 1.5 million units in the last 3 years.

The NAPD believe there are two major factors leading to the increasing scarcity of good quality refurbished pallet stock in the UK.

1. The policy of sending once-used pallets to chipping plants for immediate recycling in the belief that this best meets the user’s obligations under the Packaging Waste Regulations

2. Reducing pallet specifications to an absolute minimum to reduce initial cost and also to minimise obligation by weight under the regulations.

On the one hand pallets are being needlessly recycled into woodchip. On the other, new pallets are being made to such poor specifications that they are often un-repairable after initial use. There is also the very real problem that pared down pallets are weak and do not meet the safety recommendations of the HSE PM15. The impact on the supply side of the recycled pallet market is such that NAPD members at their last meeting reported stocks much lower than normal and incoming supplies dwindling. Implementation of the European Packaging Waste Regulations was intended to reduce the need for landfill sites by increasing the repair and reuse of wood pallets and decreasing the production of one-trip pallets. A Europe-wide pallet repair standard EN 18613 was produced to facilitate this.

The NAPD has found that management often fails to take a global view and buyers are briefed to pay as little as possible for the most pared down specification feasible and yet a more enlightened inter-departmental approach could produce considerable savings in both cost of pallets and packaging waste obligations. In the event of a serious injury due to a pallet failure an extraordinary amount of management time will be lost. A sound specification for a multi-trip pallet can be more cost effective in the long-term. A company can buy quality used pallets or re-use its own pallets so that its packaging waste obligation costs are reduced. It can contract to have them repaired by an NAPD repair specialist or sell them to a ready market.

Paul Tait, Secretary of the NAPD, said “Because of poor interpretation of the European Directive 94/62/EC Packaging and Packaging Waste in the UK there are now more one-trip throw-away pallets being made than ever before. If nothing is done to reverse the trend UK manufacturing businesses which have traditionally enjoyed a regular supply of good quality refurbished pallets at a competitive price will, inevitably, have to pay more for the remaining pallets in circulation or else buy new buyers and users should consider all the options when specifying and disposing of pallets. The NAPD will continue to lobby for repair and re-use as the most ecologically sound route for wooden transit packaging”.

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Earlier this year a proposal was considered by pallet Associations that, when repairing pallets for export under ISPM 15 rules, breakage of a single component would mean that, even if using treated boards, the whole pallet had to be re-kilned or re-fumigated. The suggestion that already sterile damaged pallets carrying the UK Forestry Commission ISPM 15 heat (HT) or fumigation (MB) treatment codes should be completely re-treated after repair was opposed by the NAPD. They argued that this would require around 10 times the kiln capacity of cut boards in an industry where there is already a shortage of kiln capacity. Similarly repeat fumigation of whole pallets in a treatment container would also take 10 times the volume of cut boards. The alternative put forward by the NAPD (the National Association of Pallet Distributors) was that just re-kilned or re-fumigated replacement components should be used.

The NAPD expressed concern that wood pallets currently had top ranking for eco-balance compared with other pallet materials but that their favourable position with Government departments and many commercial companies operating under ISO 14000 could be lost if unnecessary repeated kilning raised the eco-balance index and added to global warming. The re-fumigation solution was just as environmentally poor in that repeat treatments would add to ozone layer depletion since methyl bromide is one of the worst ozone layer depletion culprits.

It would also be harmful as far as the Packaging Waste Regulations were concerned as the cost of re-treatment (possibly multiple re-treatments) could make repair and re-use uneconomic and so increase the number of pallets going to chipping, or, if uncollected, add to the packaging waste mountain.

Happily the common sense solution was agreed. The new procedure requires that a repairer registered under the UK Forestry Commission Wood Marking Scheme examines the pallet to ensure that it is free of pests and then, having repaired it with timber treated in the same way as the original pallet, takes responsibility for the entire pallet. The original wood mark is to be obliterated and replaced with the mark of the repairer. Of course total re-treatment is still an option where necessary.

“This is a sensible decision@ said NAPD Secretary Paul Tait. AIt encourages pallet re-use by keeping down costs and because millions of pallets are repaired each year it is far better for the environment than the earlier proposal. The reuse and repair of pallets in the most energy efficient manner has always been an aim of NAPD members.”

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Pallets fit well the rule that packaging adds nothing to the value of a product, only to the cost. To save on that cost users have always tried to recover pallets and local commercial collect, repair and reuse schemes have run since the 1950s. The earliest international pallet recycling was the Europallet exchange scheme started by Austria in 1958 and now used across the world. Equally as effective as exchanging pallets is a commercial rental pool of pallets that users can hire as and when they require. Chep were the first and the Chep (Commonwealth Hire Equipment Pool) pallet was well established in Australia by the late 1960s. Enthusiasm for a UK pool was encouraged by the major TRADA pallet end-use study in 1969 and in 1974 the first Chep operation in the Northern Hemisphere was being researched for viability in the UK. By the late 1970s Chep UK was an established national scheme and the forerunner for Chep Benelux, Chep France, Chep Germany and more recently, Chep USA.

Commercial resale of otherwise wasted pallets grew more strongly in the UK than Europe because of the absence of the Europallet exchange scheme and Euros were not widely used in this country until the 1990s. The pallet recovery industry became well organised during the 1980s and Europe’s first pallet association dedicated to repair and reuse of secondhand pallets, the National Association of Pallet Distributors grew in strength setting high standards of conduct for members.

Pallet reuse and recycling was given added impetus in the mid 1980s by Germany’s determination to reduce Europe’s waste mountain. Having started well at home they then used the EU which had the authority to compel member states to conform. Those efforts did not just centre on wood pallets but on all packaging methods and materials including steel, glass, plastic and paper. In fact compared with plastics and paper packaging the pallet industry was already a model of how to reuse and prevent waste. Nevertheless the pallet industry was very visible and a natural target for waste control. At the time it was estimated that 4,000 companies in Europe produced wood pallets and to assist the planned EU legislation and in order to guide new packaging and packaging waste in all materials a European CEN committee covering all methods of packaging in all materials was set up, chaired by France, in 1989. Some 26 working groups were formed, 6 covering environment and recycling, 20 on new packaging and one entirely concerned with wood pallets.

The largest pallet using market of food and drink was already well catered for in reducing pallet waste through Chep pools across Europe and the Europallet and the second largest sector the European chemical industry felt vulnerable. The German chemical association acted with remarkable speed and efficiency in 1991 by reducing over 100 largely non-returnable wood pallet specifications within the sector to only 5, albeit voluntarily, known as CP1 to CP5. These were skid base configurations of limited strength and there were many other countries strong in polymers and chemicals that needed stronger designs. The Netherlands, Belgium and France through the Association of Polymer Manufacturers of Europe (APME) extended the range by four more designated CP6 to CP9. The CP range of
exchange pallets now sits alongside the Chep and the Euro as classic models of reuse and recycling for other materials to try to emulate in reducing some 200 designs to only 9.

The European Commission by this time was finalising Europe-wide legislation to reduce the packaging waste mountain and in 1994 produced the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive 94/62/EC which was a mandatory framework for all EU countries. All European countries were expected to interpret this into national legislation by the end of the 1990s. Almost all have now done so.

As a proactive organisation the NAPD saw the benefit of starting work on a manufacturers quality guide to pallet recycling and repair and a technical committee started work in 1993 chaired by PalletLink. This was developed with regard to safety and materials to be used then submitted to BSI as a working document and in 1995 become a base document for the European (CEN) standard. This was refined by the UK and Austrian recycling specialists on behalf of the CEN committee and was eventually to become the sole document covering pallet repair for all EU countries

So is the concept of pallet reuse and repair and eventually reclaiming pallet materials at the end of their life a sound one? The answer is a resounding yes, from every angle it is approached. The prestigious Virginia Polytechnic in the USA did a major study of the wood from used pallets versus new pallets and discovered that the average strength of recovered wood was some 11% greater than new wood. This was due to the use of fresh sawn wood in new pallets compared with the seasoned extra strength in used pallet wood. The French Pallet Association SYPAL tackled cleanliness and took a large sample of Europallets from across France and discovered that the levels of EU controlled contaminants such as lead, hexavalent chromium and mercury contaminating pallets was miniscule and way below maximum levels set for the wood industry. Then in early 2000 the NAPD in an even more comprehensive analysis at a government laboratory in York widened the search to other contaminating substances that might be present. The results were equally encouraging and with 21 member companies submitting pallets for laboratory analysis the levels were again way below maximum levels set by the EU for any packaging material.

There was an unexpected recent boost for the pallet repairers from the ISO (International Standards Organisation), which includes major pallet using nations such as the USA and Japan who had commenced work on a separate pallet repair standard. Since the European work was so advanced, they decided to halt their own work and simply adopt the European version. Now ten years after the NAPD first started work the British Standard EN ISO 18613: 2003 “Pallets for materials handling - repair of flat wooden pallets” is due to be published at about the time of publication of this article.

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A recent NAPD survey of its members showed that over the period 1990 to 2000 an average annual increase of 16% of pallets were reused or repaired. As the Packaging Waste Regulations began to have effect over the period 2000 to 2002 an average annual decrease of 17% wood pallets were reused or repaired. This resulted from the increased use of weaker one-trip pallets, which are hardly worth repairing so have to be chipped.