This might resemble a typical sight in the back lot of a warehouse, but with one exception: The green pallet at the bottom of the stack. Yes, the one balancing on the two other pallets and supporting another one: it’s holding over 6,100 lbs. of material without cracking, breaking, bending, etc. And the green coloring isn’t some alien fungus giving the wooden pallet a reinforced strength. In fact, it’s not a wooden pallet at all. It’s plastic.

The LOMOLD Group has developed a new kind of pallet, one made of a long-fiber thermoplastic (LFT) polymer and molded in fiberglass-reinforced polypropylene. Which brings all manner of advantages.

For starters, the LFT pallet (48 x 40 in.) can operate six years longer than a wooden one and requires no upkeep. LFT pallets won’t snap, are water resistant, nearly half as heavy (35 lbs. to a wooden pallet’s 88 lbs.), more durable (able to carry a 10-ton static load) and can be fully recycled instead of burned or thrown away at the end of the product lifecycle.

So why doesn’t everyone have plastic pallets? Because they’ve been expensive to produce (especially when compared with some wood and a few nails). But LOMOLD has found a remedy for that, too, in its LFT molding process, a blending of compression and injection molding that can produce a pallet in just 70 seconds. So taking lifecycle costs into account, the plastic pallet is competitive.

Even something so seemingly simple - and often overlooked - can be improved with a touch of innovation.