How to Recycle Wood Pallets?

Given the development of environmental awareness, recycling is becoming a more and more common practice. Trees are renewable and natural resources, but they are not unlimited. That’s why it is highly recommended to drop off your wooden pallets at your local recycling center to be recycled.

You can also take on the initiative of using these pallets in different ways in and outside your house. For sure, they can be handy! And goes a long way in the recycling process.

The trend is towards homemade and recycling. So it’s the perfect time to give new life to your old pallets. If you have some and don’t know what to do with them, here are five ideas to reuse.

Ideas for Indoor Use

There are thousands of simple and innovative ideas for decorating with pallets.

A Bed Frame

The trick to an affordable bed base is to make it yourself from wooden pallets. To do this, get some pallets. Two will be perfect for a 160cm bed. Remember to stack two of them so that they are not too low. Now it’s time to make them. Start by cleaning them by vacuuming them. Then, attach the pallets with wood glue or nails. The work is already done! Depending on your taste, feel free to paint the wood. And for a total look, opt for a pallet headboard.

A Coffee Table

Wooden pallets can also be used as coffee tables. To do this, take two pallets. Remove the boards from the first one to fill the holes in the second one. Then, sand the two. Arrange the boards alone on the pallet. Nail it together. Turn your new table upside down and screw in a medium plate to avoid gaps underneath. This will make your coffee table functional as you can slide in books, the remote control… To finish, screw casters on the four corners and varnish it all. Your living room is like new!

A Corner Sofa

To go with your new coffee table, use pallets to create a sofa. Start by positioning two pallets lengthwise and one widthwise. Tie the pallets together. Underneath, add 30 cm wooden legs at each corner. With another pallet divided in half and a wooden board, you can create armrests. For the backrest, assemble two new pallets to the previous ones. To finish your corner sofa, add seats and backs, and you’re done!

Shelves

With pallets, you can make dozens of different shelves. For this one, start by removing the boards from a pallet and then sand them down. Take six, eight, as you like and arrange them as you like. Next, turn the future shelf upside down and glue two boards of medium to bind the whole. Still, on the back, pre-drill screws will be placed in the pegs on the wall. On the front, add some pallet boards to form shelves. The whole thing will dress up your room in a flash.

A Bar

Have you always dreamed of a bar? What if we told you that it was effortless to make one? The first step is to sand and paint three pallets to your liking. You can then arrange them as you wish. For this tutorial, we will glue two on the front and one on the left to form an L shape. Join the pallets standing upright with joining plates. At the centerboard of the pallet, add a wooden board to prevent bottles and glasses from falling. As you can see, this part is used as a shelf. Finally, add two wooden boards to the top two parts of the bar to create a work surface. Your homemade bar is finished!

Ideas for Outdoor Use

You have to ask stores for them. Since most of them are not returnable, they are thrown away or burned! You might as well use them to create garden furniture at a lower cost, but also a green wall, a vegetable garden, a fence, or a terrace! I show you all this.

A Green Wall

The first idea is to create a plant wall very simply with a palette.

You can install it on your balcony or terrace, and it will replace the planters nicely. You can even grow herbs on it (in this case, make sure the pallet has not been chemically treated).

A Square Vegetable Garden

Square vegetable gardens have become very popular in recent years. But sometimes, the ready-made kits are quite expensive while the system is quite simple.

Why not use a pallet to create a square garden? It’s straightforward because we will use the pallet as it is (no need to disassemble it). We will fill it with soil using the same process as the green wall (see above). Vegetables and herbs will be placed between the boards, so there is almost no room for weeds to grow!

As you will be planting plants for consumption, make sure that the pallet has not received any chemical treatment.

A Terrace

Yes, you can create a deck with pallets! There are even two solutions depending on the time you want to spend and your level of DIY.

The first example is the easiest to realize because we will use the pallets in their original configuration, that is to say, without dismantling them. On stable and level support, we place them next to each other. Of course, you have to be careful not to catch your foot in the spaces between the boards. You can integrate pallets with the previous system (vegetable garden) to grow some plants and decorate your terrace.

Finally, you can paint the wood to give it its original color.

If the gaps between the boards scare you, there is nothing to stop you from doing something else: using complete pallets as a support, then screwing or nailing on side-by-side boards from other pallets. However, I advise you to always leave a small space between the boards for the evacuation of water and especially avoid that everything deforms when the wood swells and deflates with the humidity brought by the rains.

For these two systems, as the wood of the pallets is often not of good quality, I advise you not to walk on it barefoot because of the splinters.

Garden Fence

The fence is an important element of the garden that can quickly become expensive if you have a long length. Therefore, it is better to use pallets, especially since wood gives a natural aspect that is often more appreciated than metal for this type of realization. In addition, it can easily be customized. On the picture on the left, the end of the boards has been cut and the fence painted.

There are some small precautions to take so that this one is durable: it will be necessary to embed posts in the ground so that the fence has good behavior. I recommend that you choose wooden posts set 50 cm into the ground and on which the pallets will be fixed. I recommend one post between each pallet.

Garden Furniture

The possibilities of using pallets to create garden furniture are enormous. It goes from a simple coffee table made of two pallets stacked on top of each other to complete and more sophisticated garden furniture that will require some time and tools to be realized.

Now you’re one step closer to house decorated on a budget! For more creative ideas, visit The Tea Dump for weekly blogs. Be sure to check out our Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest for updates on our awesome content.