Traditionally, a pallet refers to a flat transport structure used to support the goods in a stable manner while they are lifted by a forklift, an erect crane, a jacking device, or a front loader. A pallet is basically the structural foundation of a unit load that enables transporters to handle and store the goods efficiently.
In reality, there are 400,000 pallets beings circulated across distinct industries daily. The industries range from FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) to petrochemicals, and the numbers keep growing with each passing day. Although wooden pallets are the ones that are commonly used around the world for this work, plastic pallets are known to be much more durable, safer as well as lighter. However, the problem with plastic pallets is that designing a highly durable plastic pallet that can be easily reused for years to come is not an easy task.
Recently, Dow (a Chinese supply chain management company) has adopted POE (polyolefin elastomer) among all of its plastic pallets to ensure more than double their existing life span. They have developed the next generation of plastic pallets that are embedded with RIFD (Radio Frequency Identification) and NB-IoT (Narrow Band Internet of Things) chips. This is a groundbreaking progress for Polyolefin Elastomer Market as it would enable the pallets to not only be easily identified and traced, but also recollected and reused.
The company stated that previously it could use its Plastic pallets around 20 times. But now the usability has been increased to 50 times even if conditions of harsh weather are taken into consideration such as temperature falling below -30 deg C. This move comes with the company’s objective of achieving its sustainability target of 1 Million Tonnes of plastics that is to be collected, reused and recycled with the help of direct actions and partnerships. The main goal is to advance the circulation of plastic pallets rather than wooden pallets.
Through the advance material science technology, the company was strengthened to better the performance of their pallets even meet the strict operation requirements. This is more so in terms of an erratic and challenging environment throughout its extended service life. Further, from the sustainability point of view plastic pallets are of great advantage and would be even more beneficial if other transport management companies would follow the same.