Nestable and Stackable Pallets: West Virginia

West Virginia, by road

West Virginia is a place where mountain grades matter here: I-64, I-77 and I-79 all climb, and the Eastern Panhandle touches I-81. Pallets here follow I-64, I-77, I-79, I-68 and I-81, and the distance they travel empty is the cost a nestable cuts.

The counties with the most warehousing jobs are Wood (684), Putnam (190) and Harrison (169), which is 28.7 percent of the state's 3,631. It shares a land border with Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and Kentucky.

Warehousing in numbers

West Virginia reports no refrigerated warehouse capacity separately in the USDA table we used, so the cold question depends on the individual customer.

Reading the numbers

• Wood County has 684 warehousing jobs, 18.8 percent of West Virginia's 3,631, the most in the state.
• Putnam County has 190 warehousing jobs, 5.2 percent of West Virginia's 3,631, 494 fewer than Wood County.
• Harrison County has 169 warehousing jobs, 4.7 percent of West Virginia's 3,631, 515 fewer than Wood County.
• Chemical manufacturing employs 7,595 people in West Virginia, 2.09 for every warehousing job.
• Motor vehicle parts manufacturing employs 3,925 people in West Virginia, 1.08 for every warehousing job.
• Plastics product manufacturing employs 4,044 people in West Virginia, 1.11 for every warehousing job.
• West Virginia holds 0.19 percent of US warehousing jobs, about one in every 526, spread over 100 establishments averaging 36 jobs each.
• Ohio has 98,354 warehousing jobs, 27.09 times the 3,631 in West Virginia.
• Pennsylvania has 123,481 warehousing jobs, 34.01 times the 3,631 in West Virginia.
• Maryland has 29,966 warehousing jobs, 8.25 times the 3,631 in West Virginia.
• Virginia has 51,123 warehousing jobs, 14.08 times the 3,631 in West Virginia.

Who ships pallets here

In West Virginia, chemical manufacturing employs 7,595. Drums and bags set the footprint: 48 x 48 in holds four 55-gallon drums without overhang, and 45 x 45 in is the CP9 chemical standard. It tends to lean on stackable heavy-duty pallets sized to the drum or bag, usually in 45 x 45 in (CP9) or 48 x 48 in for drums, and to ask about the static load with the container on it, and any fire listing.

Chemical manufacturing is the trade where West Virginia is most concentrated, at 2 times the national share of employment. A buyer in that trade will tend to ask the questions in the last column first.

The empty return

An illustration, not a forecast: if each of 100 warehouse establishments in West Virginia sent back 800 empty pallets in a week, that would be 80,000 pallets. The table counts the 53 ft trailers that takes at three makers' published nestable figures, beside the 540 per trailer of a rackable.

Next door

Words on this page

Establishment

A single physical location where a business operates, such as one warehouse. A company with ten warehouses has ten establishments.

Metropolitan area

A group of counties around an urban core, as the Census Bureau delineates it. Metro pages here follow those lines.

Beam span

The open gap between two rack beams. The longer the span, the lower the load the pallet can carry across it.

Polypropylene

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

Location quotient

A place's share of employment in a trade divided by the national share. Above 1 means the trade is more concentrated there than average.

Pallet pooling

A rental model where a company owns the pallets and moves them between customers, instead of each customer buying its own.

ISPM 15

An international standard on treating and marking wood packaging material. Plastic is outside it.

ZIP Code Business Patterns

A Census Bureau series that counts establishments by ZIP code and industry.

4-way entry

A pallet that forks or a pallet jack can enter from all four sides.