30 September 2010
I N F L I G H T R E C Y C L I N G By Gert van der Have
It has been calculated that the average airline passenger generates around 0.6 kg of refuse
during a fl ight. Not that much, you might think.
However, your opinion might change if you
were to take on board some of the following
numbers: in 2009, a total of around 2 billion air
passenger trips were made, including 800 mil-
lion in the USA alone in 2009. The 23 000 air-
craft operated by the world’s 2000 airlines chalk
up 28 million fl ight departures to 37 000 main
airport destinations every year. And passenger
traffi c is expected to grow 4.5% this year to 2.28
billion, according to the International Air Trav-
el Association (IATA).
Flight attendants serve around a billion meals
per year, of which a massive majority is pro-
vided by two companies: Gate Gourmet and
LSG Sky Chefs. But what happens to the dis-
carded materials associated with these meals?
A few months ago, US environmental group
Green America released a report reviewing air-
lines’ efforts to recycle these materials. Based on
2008 statistics for the USA, almost 400 million
kilogram’s was generated from 678 million airline
passenger trips – of which half was generated
in-fl ight. Around 75% of this material is recycla-
ble but only around 20% is reportedly recycled.
Environmental claims
Airline companies applaud their own environ-
mental efforts in their corporate literature, high-
lighting improvements in kerosene consump-
tion, noise reduction and ‘proper waste
management’. Major fi rms such as Lufthansa
and British Airways tout their on-board news-
paper recycling programmes. This may sound
encouraging, but what about the rest?
This is a question for Andy Dürr, the owner of
Airport Recycling which is an innovative mate-
rial recycling facility (MRF) operator based at
Hollywood airport in Fort Lauderdale, Florida,
USA. ‘We sort only the materials arriving from
domestic fl ights in the United States,’ he notes.
‘It’s a bummer that we can’t get our hands on
the materials arriving at the international gates.
However, the waste generated on domestic
For those recyclers and traders who are frequent flyers, your in-flight
experience may involve being presented with a newspaper, a drink in a
proper glass and a meal in a real porcelain dish. On the other hand, it
may entail being handed a plastic tray complete with plastic cutlery and
plastic food and drink containers. In both cases, drinks are served from
cans or bottles. In effect, the volume of materials used – and then dis-
carded – on planes each year is staggering, so could this present an
opportunity for recyclers?
Airlines’ in-flight recycling:
grounded by regulation
P30_Airline waste streams 30 02-09-2010 16:08:46
