2009-04-27 Wood or plastic? (Joseph Bonney)

Providers of wood and plastic pallets are in a bitter argument over which kinds of pallets are best.

The National Wood Pallet & Container Association fired the first shot with a statement questioning the environmental safety of plastic pallets. The NWPCA website (http://www.palletcentral.com) that claims a fire retardant used in plastic pallets can leach toxins and render the pallet "potentially unsafe for food products." To make sure no one misses the point, the website posting is illustrated with a skull-and-crossbones "toxic" warning sign.

Bob Moore, CEO of Intelligent Global Pooling Systems, (iGPS) responded by challenging the wood-pallet association and CHEP, a provider of composite wood pallets, to compare their product with iGPS's plastic pallets in an independent, side-by-side test. "We are confident we would prevail in each and every aspect of the challenge," Moore said. The full iGPS response is at http://www.igps.net.