Are free pallets from Bunnings safe to use?

[Lottle87]

Hello all, I've recently collected a bunch of pallets from bunnings stores around my area to reuse and make furniture with. I've heard plenty about Methyl Bromide and the dangers of using pallets treated with this. Some stamps on the pallets are unreadable, I just wondered if anyone knows if the pallets bunnings use (or give away) are treated with MB at all? 

[EricL]

Hello @Lottle87

Welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community. It's a pleasure to have you join us, and thank you for sharing your question about which pallets are safe to use.

Methyl Bromide is a chemical that is used to treat timber pallets to protect them from insect and fungal infestation. It is very harmful to humans and I don't recommend using them for any type of project. Pallets that are treated in this chemical are tagged with the letters MB.

The ideal pallets to use are those tagged with the letters HT which stands for heat treated. Heat treatment dries the wood and kills any insect that is currently inhabiting it, without using chemicals. Now there will be other marks on the pallet, but these two that I've mentioned are the most important ones to look at.  

What about pallets with no tags on them? In the interest of safety, I don't recommend using any pallets with no identifying marks on them, even if they look safe to use. 

If you have any other questions we can help with, please let us know.

Eric