Cardboard pallets are a lighter and cheaper alternative to wooden pallets, with less risk of damage to products or storage areas. However, they have weight limits and require specific design considerations for forklift access and reinforcement.
Moving materials efficiently often requires the use of a forklift and a stacking device known as a pallet or skid. Traditionally, pallets are constructed of wooden planks and spacers, creating a double platform for stacking products and inserting the blades of a towing motor or forklift. However, there are some drawbacks associated with using wooden pallets or skids.
Wood is expensive, heavy, and potentially harmful to the floor or stacked products. One worker cannot carry many traditional wooden pallets, and a stack of wooden skids can become a fire hazard.
Enter the cardboard pallet. A cardboard pallet consists of corrugated cardboard sheets bonded with strong paper. A bottom layer is made of flat cardboard sheets, then spacers are created to allow for forklift blades. Two layers of cardboard form the top layer, on which light loads can be stacked. Currently, the cardboard pallet is considered a disposable commodity with limited capabilities.
However, cardboard pallets offer some advantages over their bulkier wooden counterparts. Because no nails are used in the construction of a cardboard pallet, there is less risk of damage to the storage area or the products stacked upon it. Workers can take several cardboard skates back to a disposal or storage area, instead of using a forklift to stack and store heavy wooden pallets. Replacing a worn cardboard pallet is much less expensive than reordering wooden pallets from a manufacturer.
There are still some technical issues that need to be resolved before cardboard pallets can replace other shapes. Corrugated board is relatively strong compared to other paper products, but has well-defined weight limits. The mere gesture of handling a fully loaded cardboard pallet damages the material. Pallets and skids must be designed to allow forklift access, which makes some traditional engineering methods impractical. Reinforcement for a cardboard pallet cannot enter the space reserved for the forklift blades.
This means that the pallet design may only include bracing that goes in one direction between the deck layers or the use of spacers to allow forklift access from both directions. Wood pallets are inherently strong enough to withstand the stress of an unsupported top layer, but cardboard pallets often fail structurally when heavier loads are stacked.
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