Clean Wood Waste and Pallets - Facilities Services

Clean wood waste is scrap dimensional lumber (2×4 type), mill ends, oriented strand board (OSB), pallets, plywood, or wood used in concrete forms with less than 2 inch diameter residual chunks of plaster/concrete attached. Clean wood can contain nails, bolts and screws in reasonable amounts.

No cross-ties, landscaping timbers, Masonite, painted or stained wood, telephone poles, treated wood, wood with tar or roofing materials on it can be recycled.

The Office of Waste Reduction and Recycling (OWRR) picks up pallets and wooden shipping crates from loading docks on campus and takes them to the Orange County landfill to be ground up and recycled as mulch. Although there is no set pallet pick up schedule, pallets are generally picked up from loading docks and service areas on Fridays. Please notify OWRR if you have pallets which are ready to be picked up. Although pallets are only picked up from the exterior of buildings, OWRR may be able to help arrange for another shop to move the pallets for your department if no method is available to transport the pallets and shipping crates to a loading dock.

Departments with trucks and deliveries can take pallets directly to the Orange County landfill’s recycling facility. Contact OWRR for more information about this or other options.

Remember that REUSE is the best option for pallets. Ask your vendors if they are able to back-haul pallets for reuse.