Used pallets in Beltsville, MD

The research center is a major part of the local picture. Agricultural research ships supplies, equipment and specimens, and receives them: that produces a steady trickle of mixed, often non-standard pallets rather than a stream of 48x40 stock.

Federal facilities generally follow their own disposal rules. Nothing here gets around those rules; a request is limited to pallets the facility is free to release.

U.S. 1 runs through Beltsville, and the community sits between College Park and Laurel. A pickup from the corridor is a short run to the Beltway and the District. The ZIP codes for Beltsville, 20704 and 20705, also cover neighboring areas, so give the street as well as the ZIP when the pallets are in a research or federal building.

First, whether the pallets are yours to release. Second, whether any of them carried anything regulated; a pallet that held chemicals or specimens may not leave the site the way a retail pallet does. Third, the sizes. Equipment crates and lab supplies sometimes come on 42x42 or 48x48 pallets; see sizes for the range. A tidy stack of sound pallets is worth a pickup request; a mix of everything is a sort.

Federal and research sites have rules about what leaves the property. A pallet that carried a specimen cooler is not the same as one that carried office paper. Before anything else we ask whether the pallets are free to release, and if the answer is no, we say so and stop. If the answer is yes, a clean 48x40 stack from a loading dock is no different from one anywhere else.

Where the pallets did carry something regulated, the person to ask is the site’s own environmental office. For the three jurisdictions around the District, the hazardous-waste pointers are in the get-rid-of-pallets guide.

These three places lie along U.S. 1, so say if your date is flexible. Include the hours the site allows deliveries and a contact who can meet a vehicle, because research and federal sites often have gates and badges.

Laboratory supply houses ship glassware, instruments and consumables on pallets that are usually clean and lightly used. When a research office clears a storeroom, the pallets that come out are in better shape than those from a loading dock. Ask the person managing the storeroom for a count by size.

Federal and research sites often require advance notice, a named contact and identification for the driver. Give us the contact and the lead time the site needs. A pickup that has to wait at a gate costs more than one that is cleared in advance.

Give the ZIP, the size, a rough count and how the load leaves. A reply may name it as a sale, a buy-back or a clear-out. See sell and buy.

20704 20705

Do you collect pallets from federal sites?

Ask only if the site is free to release them; we say so up front when a load is one we cannot touch.

What ZIP is Beltsville?

20704 and 20705. Give the street as well, because the codes cover neighboring places.

What is the USDA research center?

The Henry A. Wallace Beltsville Agricultural Research Center is a USDA research site in Beltsville.

Do you take pallets that held lab supplies?

Only if they are free to release and carried nothing regulated. We ask about the contents first.