Plastic Pallets Along I-10

I-10 from end to end

It is the southernmost coast-to-coast Interstate and ties the Los Angeles ports to the Gulf ports. It runs from Santa Monica, California to Jacksonville, Florida, by way of Phoenix, San Antonio, Houston and New Orleans.

States that list I-10 among their main Interstates: Arizona, California, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico and Texas. A pallet that rides I-10 loaded rides it back empty, and the length of that haul is what a nestable's short stack pays for.

Metros on the route

Together the route's metros hold 255,943 warehousing jobs, led by Inland Empire (118,368) and Phoenix (42,340). That is 13.5 percent of the US trade on one road.

What the table means

Inland Empire is the largest warehousing metro on I-10 in this table, with 118,368 jobs, 46.2 percent of the route total. Warehousing and storage is the largest trade listed along it, with 255,943 jobs (partial) in the route's metros. Together the metros hold 13.5 percent of US private warehousing jobs, about one in every 7.

Arizona, California, Florida and Louisiana list I-10 among their main Interstates, so the route's metros sit inside those states' wider warehousing trade.

Trades that ship along it

In Interstate 10, warehousing and storage employs 255,943 (a partial count). Racks decide the order of questions: a pallet that sits on beams needs a racking load that matches the span, and a floor-stacked pallet needs a static load that matches the bottom of the stack. It tends to lean on rackable where the pallet lives on beams, stackable for block stacking, nestable for the empties that go back, usually in 48 x 40 in, and to ask about the racking load, and the beam span it was rated on.

The empty return, mile by mile

An illustration, not a forecast: if each of 427 route warehouse sites (jobs ÷ 600, rounded) in I-10 sent back 800 empty pallets in a week, that would be 341,600 pallets. The table counts the 53 ft trailers that takes at three makers' published nestable figures, beside the 540 per trailer of a rackable.

Words on this page

QCEW

The Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, a Bureau of Labor Statistics count of jobs and establishments taken from unemployment insurance records.

Open deck

A deck with slots or a grid, which drains water, sheds dust and weighs less than a solid one.

Interstate corridor

A freight route named for its highway, together with the metros along it.

Stretch wrap

Elastic film wound around a loaded pallet to hold the load together.

Bulk bag

A large woven bag, often sold as a Super Sack, that holds a ton or so of powder or granules and sits on a square pallet.

3PL

A third-party logistics company that stores and ships goods for other businesses.

Gross cubic feet

The total volume of a refrigerated warehouse. Usable space is smaller once aisles and equipment are subtracted.

Racking load

The weight a pallet holds when it rests on two rack beams with an open gap between them. It is usually the lowest rating and only exists for pallets built for racks.

Edge rack

A rack arrangement where the pallet rests on the edges of the beams. It is the common test case for a racking rating.

Polypropylene

Another common pallet resin, lighter and stiffer than some others, with its own behaviour in the cold.

Creep

Slow, permanent bending of plastic under a steady load. A pallet can hold a load for an hour and bow under it after a month.

Cruciform base

A base shaped like a plus sign under the pallet, which gives a stable footprint and slides well on conveyors.