European Pallets

European pallets comprise a wide range of sizes and designs - some are commercial designs, some are National Standards and some are European Standards (ENs). The most popular European pallet is the 800 x 1200 mm Europallet shown below, the Chep 1200 x 1000 rental pallet and the CP (Chemical Pallet) range of 9 sizes. Exchange and rental pallets are covered in more detail in the POOL PALLETS page, some popular European specifications are at the foot of this page.

Europallet

In 1979 Austria and Germany were the first countries in Europe to make serious attempts at International (ISO) level to reduce what was at the time a large number of pallet designs across Europe and the rest of the world, to just two sizes. Their target was to make all pallets become multiples of the ISO 400 x 300 mm packaging module ‘M’ (which neatly fits the 800 x 1200 and the 1200 x 1000 pallets). Their target was not achieved, since in ISO/TC51 other countries such as Japan resisted it since the most common Far Eastern pallet size at the time was 1100 x 1100 mm. What resulted however was a good compromise in ISO 6780 which is five ISO plan sizes and two permitted sizes that met requirements across the world well. The result was that pallet reuse was encouraged and waste was reduced.

In the chemical industry, German industry led again with the CP range. The German Chemical Association (VCI) acted with remarkable speed in 1991 by reducing over 100 largely non-returnable wood pallet specifications in the chemical industry to five, known as CP1 to CP5. The problem with wider acceptance in Europe was that these were all three-baseboard pallets of limited strength (often described as ‘skid-base’ configuration) and there were other countries also manufacturing polymers and chemicals that needed designs with a stronger full-perimeter base. So the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and the UK, through the Association of Polymer Manufacturers of Europe (APME) extended the range by four more designs: CP6 to CP9. The APME adopted all these designs as the familiar nine widely used CP specifications CP1 to CP9. Specifications of these are given in our POOL PALLETS page.

As well as pallet users, the European pallet making industry has reacted well to encourage reuse and waste reduction. For example, the UK National Association of Pallet Distributors (NAPD) saw the benefit of a recylers guide to recycling and repair and a UK technical committee started work in 1993. This was chaired by PalletLink and a recycling document was developed as a working document and submitted through BSI and in 1995 which became the starting document for the eventual European Standard EN ISO 18613: 2003 Pallets for materials handling - repair of flat wooden pallets.

If you need European specifications you cannot easily find try QUICK SEARCH at the top of this page which locates full titles, part titles, topics or document numbers. We have more European pallet specifications on file which may be added to this site in due course so if you can't find something call us. The most popular European pallet standards plus popular commercial pallets are either downloadable below, or at some other point on the site. For lists of overseas standards see the PUBLISHED STANDARDS page.

For Downloading...

This is a members only document. Login if you are an existing member.

Click Here for information on joining PalletLink to gain access to all the benefits of a subscription.