Pallet Police

This is a pallet. A wooden pallet.

Some people call it a "skid".

There are millions...no billions of these all over the world.

A simple functional item born out of the necessity to move a pile of boxes, cartons, or whatever with the use of a forklift. (The wonders of the industrial age.)

As you look around you right now, wherever you are sitting, all the manufactured items you see, at one point probably travelled on a pallet.

This week, my brother was explaining that a pallet had been refused entry into our country by US Customs. They were requiring us to send this refugee pallet back to the foreign land from whence it came. This wooden pallet was shipped back at a cost of about $225.

Within a week or two, we receive another bill from overseas. They are now charging us $335. to dispose of said pallet.

Needless to say, it would have been better for us if this pallet had never been born.

First of all, I would assume that we have the technology in the US to properly dispose of a wooden pallet - especially with a budget of $335.

Maybe we should feel better that the trend has been a move toward plastic pallets. I guess filling landfills with non-organic plastic is somehow better, in the minds of some, than continued use of an organic renewable resource.

You can sleep well tonight - knowing that US Customs and Border Patrol, The TSA and Homeland Security are hard at work protecting America one pallet at a time. Once you allow one bad pallet into this country...well, who knows what could get in next?