Our customers in the food sector get audited on this, and because our material enters their buildings, so do we. It is a less glamorous subject than carbon accounting and it is the one that actually loses people contracts.
What lives in a pallet pile
Rodents, primarily, because a stack of pallets is a pre-built apartment block with covered runs and no predators. Then insects — the wood-boring ones people worry about, and far more commonly the ones simply sheltering in the gaps. Standing water in a settled pile adds mosquitoes. None of this requires anything exotic; it requires a pile that has stood undisturbed for months.
Why geometry beats poison
Bait stations treat the symptom. What actually works is removing the habitat, and habitat is created by four conditions: shelter, stillness, moisture and proximity to a food source. You can engineer three of them out of a yard.
- Elevation. Nothing sits directly on the ground. Rodents enter from below and concrete wicks moisture that invites everything else.
- Spacing. Aisles between piles. A continuous mass of timber is a protected interior; discrete stacks with gaps are exposed on all sides.
- Rotation. This is the big one. A genuine FIFO discipline means no pile stands long enough to become a home. Stock that moves is not habitat.
- Drainage. A yard that holds water after rain holds pests. Ours was regraded after the 2017 flood and it was the best pest control money we have ever spent.
- Separation from anything edible. Which in our case means nothing organic in the yard beyond the wood itself, and mulch bays kept away from the platform stacks.
The inspection routine
Weekly walk of the perimeter and every pile base, looking for droppings, gnaw marks, burrows at the fence line and runs in the gravel. Monthly review of the bait station log with our contractor. Immediate investigation of any platform returned by a customer with evidence on it — that is the one that matters, because it means something left here with a passenger.
What we do with suspect material
Segregate it immediately rather than sorting it. Visible insect activity in a platform means it goes to the grinder, not the repair bench — the economics of trying to salvage it do not justify the risk of seeding either our yard or a customer's building. Kiln or heat-chamber treatment will kill what is in a board, and we use it where the stock justifies the cycle.
What to ask us, and what to ask yourself
Ask us for the pest management programme documentation before your audit; it is a document and it exists. Then ask the harder question about your own site, because the pallet pile behind your building is subject to exactly the same physics as ours, and it has probably been standing a great deal longer.
What the 2017 flood taught us
Eleven inches of rain put six thousand platforms under water and gave us a pest problem that took two seasons to clear. The standing water was the whole cause: a yard that holds water after rain holds everything that likes water, and gravel that has settled into shallow basins holds it for days.
We regraded the entire four acres that winter, which was the most expensive thing we have ever done to the ground and the single most effective pest control measure in the company's history. Drainage is not usually filed under pest management. It should be.
Rotation as the primary control
Habitat requires stillness. A stack that moves every three weeks is not a home; a stack that has not moved since March is. This is why genuine FIFO discipline does more for pest control than any bait programme, and why the sites with the worst problems are always the ones with the oldest piles.
The practical test: walk your yard and ask of each pile, when did this last move? Any answer measured in months is a finding. It is also, usually, a pile of material somebody could be paid for.
The inspection routine, weekly
- Perimeter and fence line for burrows and runs in the gravel. Rodents commute along edges, not across open ground.
- Every pile base, which means being able to see the base. A pile sitting directly on the ground cannot be inspected and that is reason enough not to have one.
- Droppings and gnaw marks on bottom courses and on any timber that has been stationary.
- Standing water after rain, noted and fixed rather than noted and remembered.
- Bait station log reviewed monthly with the contractor, with trends rather than counts.
- Any platform returned by a customer with evidence on it, investigated immediately. That is the one that matters, because it means something left here carrying a passenger.
Why suspect stock goes to the grinder rather than the bench
Visible insect activity in a platform means it is ground, not repaired. The salvage value of a platform is a few dollars; the cost of seeding either our yard or a customer's food facility is not comparable. Heat chamber treatment will kill what is in a board and we use it where the stock justifies a cycle, but the default for anything with live activity is the grinder.
This is a case where the environmentally preferable action — repair and reuse — is the wrong one, and being honest about that is more useful than pretending the hierarchy has no exceptions.
The question to turn back on yourself
Ask us for our pest management documentation before your audit; it exists and it is an email. Then look at the pile behind your own building, which is subject to exactly the same physics as ours and has probably been standing a great deal longer.
Marcus, yard supervisor · Pallets Recycle, 1113 Ingram Ave, Richmond VA · published April 21, 2026 · 955 words. Corrections welcome — tell us if we have this wrong.