Standing route
A fixed day and window each week. Your team knows when the trailer arrives; ours knows what to expect. The lowest-friction option once volume is predictable.
Service 05
Pallet Retrieval
In short
Retrieval is the unglamorous half of the pallet business and the half that determines whether your dock works. We run scheduled routes, drop-and-swap trailers and on-call pickups across the Ohio Valley, so empty pallets leave your building on a rhythm you choose rather than accumulating until somebody escalates it.
Quote: Pallet Retrieval
Send the details and a named person at the Evendale yard replies within one business day with pricing, freight and a piece count — in writing.
Four ways to get pallets off your dock
Drop-and-swap trailer
We park a 53-ft trailer at your dock. Your team loads it as pallets accumulate. When it is full — or on a set cadence — we swap it for an empty. Zero interruption to your operation.
On-call
Email us when the pile reaches your threshold. We slot you into the next route running your direction, usually within 48 to 72 hours.
One-time cleanout
Plant closures, seasonal clearouts, post-move recovery. We bring as many trailers as the count requires and leave the yard empty in a single visit.
Equipment, and why it matters at your dock
Retrieval fails on access more often than on volume. A 53-ft dry van is the cheapest way to move 600 pallets and completely useless behind a downtown bakery with a 20-foot apron. We keep three classes of equipment so the answer is never "we cannot get in there".
| Equipment | Capacity | Access requirement | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| 53-ft dry van | ~550–600 stacked pallets | Standard dock door, 60-ft apron | DCs, manufacturers, high volume |
| 53-ft flatbed with straps | ~480 banded pallets | Yard space, forklift on site | Outdoor piles, wet stock, mixed loads |
| 26-ft box truck with liftgate | ~140 pallets | Street or alley access, no dock needed | Retail, restaurants, small shops, urban sites |
| Drop trailer (customer-loaded) | ~550 pallets | Parking space for a parked trailer | Sites with irregular accumulation |
Multi-site and property-wide programs
Industrial parks, retail plazas and multi-plant manufacturers have the same problem repeated across addresses: nobody owns the pile, everybody is annoyed by it. We coordinate a single program across all your locations with consolidated invoicing, per-site reporting and one point of contact. Property managers frequently find that the recovered core value covers the entire cost of the service.
- One agreement, one invoice, itemised per site
- Per-location piece counts for internal chargeback
- Consolidated monthly diversion reporting across the portfolio
- Route optimisation across nearby sites lowers the cost for every address on it
The eleven questions our route coordinator asks
Retrieval fails on access far more often than on volume. These are the questions asked before any equipment is assigned, and answering them in your first email removes a round trip and usually a day.
- Clear depth from the dock face to the nearest fixed obstruction, in feet. A 53-ft trailer wants 110–130.
- Can a truck enter and leave without reversing onto a public road?
- Overhead clearance on the approach — canopy, signage, power line, low bridge on the only route in.
- Gate width and turning radius at the entrance.
- Dock height, and whether you have a leveller or need a liftgate.
- Is a forklift available at the receiving end, and during which hours?
- Is the pile indoors, under cover, or in the open? This decides dry van against flatbed.
- Ground condition where a trailer would stand. Soft asphalt in July is a real consideration for landing gear.
- Any landlord or municipal restriction on truck movements by time of day.
- Are there pooled pallets in the pile? We will not take them and we would rather know before we arrive.
- Who signs the tally, and are they there at the time you are asking for?
Two phone photographs answer roughly half of these at once. Stand at the dock door and photograph the approach; stand where a truck would enter and photograph the door.
Choosing a cadence from your accumulation rate
The commonest retrieval mistake is a schedule set by habit rather than by generation rate. If you know roughly how many empties appear per week, the right arrangement falls out of it.
| Empties per week | Recommended arrangement | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Under 50 | On-call, or add to a neighbouring account's route day | A dedicated trip does not pay for either side. Shared route days often do. |
| 50 – 150 | Fortnightly scheduled collection | Pile stays under control without a truck running half empty. |
| 150 – 400 | Weekly standing route day | The sweet spot for a live collection. Predictable for both sides. |
| 400 – 700 | Drop trailer, swapped fortnightly | Removes the live-load window entirely and keeps stock dry. |
| 700 – 1,500 | Drop trailer, swapped weekly | Your team loads as they go; no double handling, no pile. |
| Over 1,500 | Two drop trailers on rotation, or on-site sort | At this rate the sorting question is worth asking as well. |
The figure that decides between a live collection and a drop trailer is not volume, it is how evenly the volume arrives. A site generating 300 a week in a single Thursday burst is a drop-trailer site at half the volume of one generating 60 a day.
What we do with the things you cannot identify
Every mature pile contains a population of objects nobody can account for. Here is what happens to each, so you are not left wondering whether to raise it.
Pooled pallets
Left behind, stacked separately, with a note. Taking them creates a liability on your account that you did not agree to — we will not do it, and a recycler who does is not doing you a favour.
Customer-owned returnable containers
Plastic totes, dunnage racks, collapsible bulk containers. Set aside and flagged. These are usually worth more than anything else in the pile and they belong to somebody.
IBC frames and cages
Taken if the frame is intact and the tote is absent or empty and clean. Quoted separately — the steel has value.
Wooden crates and boxes
Taken. Frequently better raw material than pallets, and knock-down reusable crates sometimes go back into service intact.
Loose dunnage and offcuts
Taken, and genuinely wanted — it goes straight to the grinder line without a teardown step.
Broken plastic pallets
Taken under our buyback programme regardless of where they were bought, and moved to regional reprocessors for regrind.
Anything with a chemical label
Not taken without a conversation first. Photograph the label and send it.
The forklift nobody remembers
It has happened twice. We will tell you it is there.
Common questions
How quickly can you come out?
On-call pickups inside our core radius are typically scheduled within 48 to 72 hours. Emergency same-day is sometimes possible depending on route position — ask.
Do we need a forklift?
For dock-height dry van loading, yes, or your team can hand-stack. Our box trucks carry liftgates and our flatbed drivers carry their own equipment on most runs.
Can you pick up from an outdoor pile that has been rained on?
Yes. Wet stock has lower value but it still has value, and leaving it is not a service. We bring a flatbed and straps for outdoor recovery.
Is there a charge?
For loads with recoverable value inside our radius, no — and frequently we pay you. Heavily contaminated or very remote loads may carry a quoted per-load fee.