Whenever you see steel drums, you often see them stored on wooden pallets. A recent story in the Wall St. Journal tells us about Brambles, the world’s largest supplier of wooden pallets, which faces significant challenges in recovering its lost property, often encountering resistance from those holding the pallets.
- While recovery efforts are relatively smooth in Europe, they can be confrontational in some places where property owners may respond aggressively.
- Brambles, which rents reusable pallets to various industries, deals with the loss, theft, and damage of millions of pallets monthly, creating substantial replacement costs.
To tackle this issue, Brambles employs “pallet detectives,” former law-enforcement personnel dedicated to tracking and retrieving stray pallets.
- These detectives use traditional investigative techniques and modern technology, such as GPS trackers, to locate missing pallets.
- Despite these efforts, locating and reclaiming pallets can be challenging, sometimes necessitating drones to identify hidden pallets in yards.
Pallets’ versatile nature means they are often repurposed creatively, from makeshift furniture to industrial chic home decor.
- However, they are also misappropriated for less savory uses, such as being stolen for resale or used by organized crime for drug transportation.
- Pallets’ rudimentary appearance often leads to their undervaluation, yet they are critical components of global supply chains, ensuring the movement of goods worldwide.
Industry experts suggest offering monetary incentives to return stray pallets could mitigate the issue. By placing a tangible value on the pallets, individuals would be more motivated to recover and return them, reducing the overall loss and improving the efficiency of the supply chain.