Knowledge centre
Wooden or plastic Euro pallets
The answer depends almost entirely on one question: does the pallet come back? Everything else is detail around that.
Side by side
| Factor | Timber | Plastic |
|---|---|---|
| Unit cost | Lower to buy, especially in used and reconditioned grades. | Considerably higher to buy; only sensible if the pallet returns. |
| Whole-life cost | Good where pallets are one-way or repaired locally. | Often lower in a genuine closed loop with many trips. |
| Plant-health scope | Solid wood packaging: ISPM 15 treatment and marking apply on GB/EU movements. | Not wood packaging: outside ISPM 15 scope entirely. |
| Hygiene | Porous, absorbs moisture, cannot be washed down in the same way. | Washable and non-absorbent; suits food and pharmaceutical environments. |
| Repair | Boards and blocks are replaceable; a repair economy exists. | A cracked moulding generally ends the pallet's life. |
| Dimensional consistency | Varies with moisture, wear and repair history. | Consistent, which matters for automation and shuttle racking. |
| Weight | Around 25 kg for EPAL 1; heavier when wet. | Varies widely by design; often lighter, sometimes not. |
| Exchange and pooling | EPAL-marked pallets are accepted in pool exchange arrangements. | Outside the EPAL pool; no EPAL marks. |
How we would actually decide
Start with the loop
If the pallet leaves your control and does not come back, plastic is usually a gift you did not intend to make. If it runs a fixed circuit between known sites, plastic's higher unit cost divides across many trips and the sums often favour it.
Then hygiene
Washdown environments, open food handling and pharmaceutical work push hard towards plastic, and no amount of care makes porous timber behave like a moulded surface. Conversely, a great deal of dry industrial and retail distribution has no hygiene requirement that timber cannot satisfy.
Then automation
Automated storage, conveyors and robotic handling are unforgiving about dimensional variation, splinters and protruding nails. If a stoppage costs real money, consistency is worth paying for.
Then the border
Plastic sits outside ISPM 15 because it is not wood packaging, which removes a whole category of frontier risk. That is a genuine advantage on repeat export lanes — but it is not a reason to assume the rest of a movement looks after itself. Read ISPM 15 explained and GB and EU movements.
And check the contract
If your customer's specification requires EPAL exchange, plastic does not satisfy it and neither does unbranded timber. Read the purchase order before optimising anything.
Where we will not pretend
We are not going to publish a life-cycle carbon comparison. Honest figures depend on timber sourcing, transport distances, trip counts, end-of-life handling and recycling routes, and any single number we quoted would be marketing rather than information.