Industry News

       There is no clear documented time at which plastic pallets first appeared, but the consensus in the pallet industry is that they most likely appeared in the United States after World War II. Credit is given to retired B-29 captain Leo Nathans for creating plastic pallets for the auto industry to ship car parts when plastic pallets were a precious commodity due to war effort.
       Modern Material Handling Magazine earliest mention of plastic pallets is in 1964 for a fiberglass reinforced plastic pallet.
       In the early 1970s, the rotational molding process was used to produce polyethylene pallets in Oklahoma for the food, pharmaceutical and food industries only as returnable units, whereas the producer of products would ship to their customer and the customer would return the pallet to the supplier for reuse. The process was also used to produce pallets for in process applications at Food and Pharmaceutical facilities, where a high degree of cleanliness was required. Robert Lux with Thermodynamics in Oklahoma has been cited by many sources as the father of the rotationally molded pallet with over 300 designs to his credit in his 35 years of material handling product design.
       Having not been innovated sense its inception in 1964. One of the first innovations can be credited to Fast Lock Pallet. Creating the first interlocking plastic pallet. Allowing users to create custom size pallets on the spot in seconds.