Asphalt Materials and US Aggregates Unite in Pallet Reusing Initiative

By Hannah McFarland 

Heritage Construction + Materials companies Asphalt Materials, Inc. (AMI) and US Aggregates have joined together to build a program that finds new ways to reuse AMI’s pallets at US Aggregates’ locations.  

This initiative keeps AMI from recycling their pallets through a third-party vendor, as well as from being discarded. It also aids in increasing efficiency amongst US Aggregates since the pallets will be received through an internal company.   

AMI has several plant locations that receive materials on pallets. While US Aggregates Director of Operations, Kristin Sweeney was touring our Indianapolis plant, she realized there may be an opportunity for the companies to work together to reuse the pallets once AMI unpacks the deliveries. 

AMI previously sent the empty pallets to a third party to be recycled. At the same time US Aggregate’s Midwest Calcium Carbonates, LLC (MCC) repurchases about 4,600 new pallets per year to ship materials at their Cloverdale location. While most US Aggregates locations sell aggregates for use in construction in bulk dump truck shipments, MCC ships bags of its specialty products on pallets.  

This pallet recycling program is still under development and is targeted to have a full action plan by mid-summer. AMI Lean Six Sigma Black Belt Jessica Laffin, and US Aggregates Assistant Superintendent Derek Rossok are working together to lead this project with support from Kristin Sweeney.  

The next step in this program is to measure the demand rate of customers, measure generation rate of acceptable pallets, and gain customer buy-in. Another important part of this program is to lock down the logistics of these pallets being transported to and from locations. Jessica Laffin will be working closely with AMI Plant Managers Nick Martinelle and James Roush to identify how they can take advantage of truck deliveries occurring in the Chicagoland area.  

We are very excited to see the results of this program being put in place, and throughout the process we will also be saving roughly 190 trees. At AMI & US Aggregates, we are building for generations, and we want to be leaving our people, our planet, and our communities better than we found them.