Gallery: Made-in-Portland green pallet technology headed to India

View photo gallery (7 photos)

Cathy Cheney | Portland Business Journal

Portland-based Altman Browning & Co. designed and built the machinery to produce fully recyclable cardboard pallets that are just as strong as their troublesome wooden counterparts. 

Wooden shipping pallets are heavy and difficult to recycle, causing headaches in the shipping industry.

Boise, Idaho-based Unipal International Ltd. came up with a way to build shipping pallets using commodity corrugated cardboard, making them clean and 100 percent recyclable. Unipal then signed a manufacturing license agreement with Portland-based Altman Browning & Company to develop and sell the machinery to automate the process of making the green pallets.

See how the pallets are made >>

Two years later, Altman Browning is putting the finishing touches on the first suite of machines that will ship out from the Port of Portland bound for Mumbai at the end of the month.

"How about that, we're exporting green technology," said David Browning, Altman Browning's chief technology officer.

Cathy Cheney, Portland Business Journal's photographer, visited Altman Browning to see how the equipment works and just how strong a cardboard pallet can be. Click on the image above to view the gallery and learn more.