Think of everything you've bought in the last 24 hours. Every single one of those items arrived at your local retailer bundled with other goods on a pallet. The global shipping industry's use of pallets, approximately 90% of which are made of wood and only survive an average 1.7 trips. Wooden pallet creation is responsible for one million acres of deforestation annually, a staggering sum that would require up to 40 years of growth to replace. Inventor and Clay High School grad Daniel Wilson has launched a sustainable and ergonomic shipping alternative.
"I was working in the shipping and receiving department of Honda's R&D facility in Marysville, Ohio," recalls Wilson. "One day I had to ship a box that was 20" by 20", and all we had was the standard 40" by 48" wooden pallet. It was unnecessarily large for this box. Then, I had the thought, why hasn't anyone made a pallet of adjustable size?"
That unique thought caught the attention of Rick Sayman, Wilson's friend and co-worker at Honda. Last year they founded Capstone Innovations, Inc., a company dedicated to finding "the next innovation" in all forms of products. In 2012 Capstone released the eco-friendly Fast Lock Pallet. It's engineered entirely within Ohio and manufactured an hour west of Toledo at 20 20 Custom Molded Plastics in Holiday City. Using patented technology in an "adaptable, interlocking pallet system," the pallets are "made of 100% recycled structural foam plastic. That means we're double green: we're not using any new plastic, and our product is 40% lighter than wooden pallets, reducing its carbon footprint when shipped."
The Fast Lock Pallet is now available through regional and national industrial and shipping materials distributors. For more information, visit www.capstoneinnovations.com or www.fastlockpallet.com
