Cores (Salvage) Pallets

A pallet core is a used pallet that fails even Grade C: a broken or missing stringer or block, several broken or missing deck boards, or damage that makes it unsafe to load. It is sold for its parts, not as a pallet.

Repair yards buy cores to dismantle. Sound boards, stringers and blocks go into repairs on other pallets, which is where the replacement board on a Grade B pallet comes from. What cannot be reused is ground for mulch, animal bedding or biomass fuel, depending on treatment, contamination and what the local market takes.

Some cores are repairable pallets that were never sorted. A single broken deck board or one cracked stringer can be repaired to Grade B, so a seller with volume should have the load graded before selling all of it as cores.