IKEA Switches to Paper Pallets
Furniture manufacturer IKEA has recently made the decision to switch to paper pallets rather than the more traditional wooden pallets used by most other companies. It’s a rather drastic and some might say risky move, so there must be some significant benefits to the move? Let’s find out…
Firstly, we ‘d like to find out what IKEAs motives are. It would be easy to concede that all of their motives are financial, despite them saying the environment is at the forefront of their mind, but what are the real implications?
IKEA currently use about 10 million pallets every year and intend to be fully switched to paper based pallets by the end of the year, seemingly cutting transport costs by 10%. Despite being made of paper, the pallets can handle a similar load but are significantly lighter, thus reducing transport costs.
The only problem with the paper based pallet system is that the pallets can only be used in distribution once, then they have to be recycled. The question then is, can the whole of the pallet be recycled and how much effort and resources are needed to recycle these pallets in such volumes? If this is significantly more than the cost and resources that go into recycling wooden pallets, then in terms of the environment, it’s not the best deal in the world.
Wooden pallet recycling is a pretty straight forward process and can all be done from a single plant (like the one at palletrecyclingsouthwales.co.uk). A single wooden pallet could realistically last years and despite the extra weight of the wood, it would be extremely interesting to see the exact numbers in terms of environmental benefit.
Further questions will be asked of the paper pallets when they are fully introduced to IKEA’s logistical setup. Will they actually be able to handle the weighty loads of IKEAs products? How will they respond to changes in weather – can they get wet? If they struggle to survive after a small soaking, not only will it be a nightmare for delivery drivers, it will also require them to have an even higher turnover of paper pallets.
Are IKEA revolutionising the way we distribute our goods or will they be falling short of the hurdle and quickly be reverting back to traditional wooden pallets?
