Pallet collection: free, paid or chargeable
Pallet collection comes in three flavours: someone pays you, someone takes them for nothing, or you pay to have them removed. Which one you get depends almost entirely on size, condition and how many you have at once.
Pallet collection: key facts
| You get paid for | Standard sizes in reusable condition, in decent quantity |
|---|---|
| Free collection for | Standard sizes needing repair, or smaller quantities |
| You pay for | Odd sizes, broken pallets, wet or contaminated wood |
| Standard UK pallet | 1200 x 1000 mm |
| Euro pallet | 1200 x 800 mm |
| Paperwork | A waste transfer note if they are waste. None needed if you are selling them as goods |
What decides which deal you get
Size. This matters more than anything. A collector wants pallets they can resell or put back into circulation, which means standard sizes: 1200 x 1000 mm for the UK standard, 1200 x 800 mm for the Euro pallet. A bespoke pallet built for one machine has no onward market and is firewood, however sound it looks.
Condition. Intact pallets can be resold. Pallets with a cracked board or a damaged block can be repaired, which still has value but less of it. Pallets that have been driven through by a forklift, are soaked, or are coming apart are waste wood.
Quantity. A lorry journey costs the same whether it picks up ten pallets or two hundred. That single fact explains most of the market: a warehouse with a hundred standard pallets on a regular cycle gets paid, and a shop with six behind the bins pays or waits.
Access. A collector needs to get a vehicle close and load with a forklift or tail lift. Pallets stacked behind a locked gate at the end of a narrow alley cost more to collect than they are worth.
Getting into the paid category
- Keep them dry. Wet wood is heavy, stains, and can go mouldy. Store them under cover or at least off the ground.
- Stack them properly, same size together, flat, and in a place a forklift can reach.
- Sort by size rather than making the collector do it. Euro and UK standard in separate stacks, oddities in a third.
- Keep broken ones separate. A stack with three unusable pallets buried in it gets priced as the worse material.
- Accumulate to a sensible load before calling, if you have the space. Frequency is what costs money.
Waste or goods?
This distinction decides your paperwork, and it is one most businesses get wrong. If you are selling pallets as a product to someone who will reuse them, they are goods. If you are discarding them, they are controlled waste and the whole duty of care regime applies: a registered carrier, a written description, a waste transfer note with the six digit List of Wastes code and your SIC code, kept two years by both parties, and confirmation that you have applied the waste hierarchy.
The practical test is what happens next. A pallet going back into circulation is goods. A pallet going to be chipped is waste. When in doubt, treat it as waste and get the note; an unnecessary transfer note costs nothing, and a missing one carries a fixed penalty of £300 by default and potentially an unlimited fine on prosecution.
Check your carrier's registration number, which begins CBDU, on the Environment Agency public register before the first collection. If pallets of yours are later found fly-tipped, that check and the note are what show you met your duty of care.
What happens to them afterwards
In order of preference: resold for reuse, repaired and resold, dismantled for usable boards, or chipped. Chipped wood goes to panel board manufacture, animal bedding, landscaping mulch or biomass fuel.
Worth knowing: the UK recycled 51.7% of wood packaging in 2024, with 43.7% provisionally for 2025, which is the weakest of the main packaging materials. And in Wales, sending any wood waste to landfill is banned outright, so the chipping route is not optional there.
Our directory lists companies collecting wood and pallets by postcode, with phone numbers and websites where we have found them.
Frequently asked questions
Will someone collect my pallets for free?
Often yes, if they are a standard size in repairable or better condition and there are enough of them to justify the journey. Odd sizes, broken pallets and wet wood usually mean you pay for removal.
How many pallets do I need before a collector will pay me?
There is no fixed number, but a lorry journey costs the same whether it collects ten or two hundred, so quantity is what moves you from paying to being paid. A regular cycle of standard pallets is what collectors want.
Do I need a waste transfer note for pallets?
If you are discarding them, yes: they are controlled waste and the full duty of care applies. If you are selling them as goods for reuse, no. When in doubt get the note, since a missing one carries a £300 fixed penalty by default.
Why won't anyone take my bespoke pallets?
Because there is no onward market for a non-standard size. A collector wants pallets they can resell or return to circulation, which means 1200 x 1000 mm UK standard or 1200 x 800 mm Euro.
What happens to pallets that cannot be reused?
They are dismantled for usable boards or chipped, and the chips go to panel board manufacture, animal bedding, landscaping mulch or biomass fuel. In Wales sending wood waste to landfill is banned.
Sources
- Waste (England and Wales) Regulations 2011, regulation 35, waste transfer notes
- Waste duty of care code of practice, Defra and the Environment Agency
- Workplace recycling, Welsh Government, on the wood to landfill ban
- UK statistics on waste, DEFRA, published 23 September 2026
- Environmental Protection Act 1990, section 34A, fixed penalty notices