It depends on the place. If you only have a few pallets you probably get charged for the pick-up. If you have many pallets you get paid a small amount. There is a cost associated with getting a truck from one place to another irrespective of how loaded down it is.

Part of the reason the whole CHEP thing happened is that there is very little high-level communication that goes on around all this. The pallet supply chain is mature and the folks managing it don't necessarily talk to the folks making it happen day-in and day-out all the time. Getting them to enforce some kind of rule that they will view as bullshit is going to be next to impossible. The blue pallets will show up at your facility anyhow and are you going to pay to ship them back? And then bill your customer for the cost of shipping them back? Either they won't pay and you'll have to take them to collections when they switch to a new recycler or you'll roll over since you want to stay in business.

When you're moving $10k worth of stuff on a $10 pallet and paying $2 to get it picked back up the $2 is a joke. When it costs $2 to pick a pallet up and $2 to send it back and your profit margins are probably 10-20% then if you get 5% CHEP pallets you end up paying double for them if you try and do the right thing (which eats up your 10% margin) or you just look the other way and don't think too hard.