Tossed Away: The airline industry in the U.S. trashes enough aluminum cans every year to build nearly five dozen jumbo jets.
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Even the infrequent flier might have noticed that when the flight attendant comes around collecting passenger detritus, all the empty cans, cups, bottles, newspapers and napkins usually end up in the same garbage bag. The U.S. airline industry discards enough aluminum cans every year to build nearly 58 Boeing 747s and enough paper to fill a football field–size hole 230 feet deep—that’s 4,250 tons of aluminum and 72,250 tons of paper. The 30 largest airports in the country, with the help of the airlines, create enough waste to equal the trash produced by cities the size of Miami or Minneapolis.
Unlike other aspects of the travel business, the airline industry has moved at a snail’s pace to get onboard the green revolution. Although hotels, for instance, have plenty of monetary reasons to encourage patrons not to have their towels changed every day, the airline industry has little economic incentive and even less government pressure to go green.
Several factors have discouraged airlines and airports from following the nation’s recycling trends, says Allen Hershkowitz, a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). In December 2006 he published a report quantifying the waste from the industry and lambasting it for its lack of initiative toward recycling.
One of the problems is that airports have been reluctant to change their infrastructure to accommodate recyclable materials. Some airlines even separate the recyclables from the trash onboard the airplane, but if the airport is not equipped for recycling, it all goes into the same place. “Airports have been designed without recycling in mind,” Hershkowitz explains. “There are, for example, waste chutes that are all too convenient to dump trash. But there’s no chute for recycling.”
Some airports, however, have made great strides—recycling bins have popped up in terminals in recent years. And some facilities have taken recycling more seriously than others—Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International, Seattle-Tacoma International and Portland International are a few examples. None, however, yet comes close to the national recycling rate of 31 percent of waste.
The lack of a recycling infrastructure at airports has meant that an airline that wants to recycle must take on the expense itself—a difficult choice given the financial straits in which most airlines find themselves today. But part of the problem, as Hershkowitz claims, is that some do not realize the payback. “It costs more money to dump in a landfill than it does to put recyclables on the commodities market and get some money back,” he says. Hershkowitz’s study found that the four airports he observed that had aggressive recycling programs saved at least $100,000 a year. (Seattle-Tacoma led the way with $180,000.)
An approach called commingled recycling may be the easiest way to reduce costs and get more airlines to recycle. In this method, trash and reusable materials do not have to be separated onboard—a machine separates the trash from the reusable material and then separates the different types of recyclables. More waste management firms are offering the service to airlines. As a result, Delta Airlines, which recycled onboard trash in only five cities in 2007, recycled it in 23 cities in 2008. Southwest Airlines and JetBlue are in the process of expanding their commingled recycling efforts, too. Southwest would not say how much money it makes from recycling, but a representative for the airline says the goal is to pay for its waste management through recycling rebates and reduction.
Despite such recent efforts, Hershkowitz doesn’t think the recent efforts go far enough, and he hopes that the Obama administration will install some regulations forcing airlines and airports to take recycling more seriously. “The voluntary system hasn’t worked,” he insists. In January, Hershkowitz met with the Government Accountability Office over the problem and recommended that a law be created requiring that all airports receiving federal funds must begin separating recyclables from trash. If the GAO follows through, it will issue a report this fall recommending the regulation of airport recycling.
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7 Comments
Add CommentI was on a flight just last night and the flight attendant was sorting the cans into a separate bag.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI was on a flight just last night and the flight attendant was sorting the cans from the rest of the trash.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI did not know that airports do not recycle. But I'm not surprised. Here in Vermont, one of the cleanest States (The GREEN Mountain State usually lives up to it's moniker), we have no recycle requirements for apartment houses. Dumpsters are used. The sad thing is we have recycling dumps everywhere. Residents of the apartments could easily recycle, but most do not.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI lived in a house with 4 apartments. I recycled -- no one else did. While roaming around on my bike, I see no evidence that anyone else does either.
We need laws to mandate everyone recycle, especially, in our throw away society.
Forcing airports to have a recycling infrastructure is not a bad thing. But let's consider another "r" from "Reduce, Recycle, Reuse" as well. Some time ago, I took a number of flights between cities in Brazil (on a number of domestic Brazilian airlines). Unlike US-based airlines, the "drink cart" on a Brazilian flight is more like a bar than a soda machine: the cart has normal-sized bottles of both alcoholic and soft drinks which are poured into cups. Thus, instead of 100 partially-used cans of Coke to be recycled, the Brazilian flight has a lot fewer, completely used 2-liter bottles. Single-shot bottles of vodka (including wasteful individual caps and seals) are replaced by a single larger bottle. And so on. There is minimal additional cost to the flight attendants to dispense drinks this way -- for refills -- and clear benefits in the reduction of waste, both packaging and the drinks themselves.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIs there a regulatory reason that such is not the practice in the US? Are airlines forced to operate as soda machines with cans? I don't believe so, since I have seen water dispensed on flights from large bottles. Is it illegal somehow to leave an opened 2-liter soda bottle, secured in the drink cart, for the next flight? What about shuttle/short flights where a limited selection of drinks is poured in the galley and brought on trays? Or have US airlines simply grown up with the same throw-away culture as the rest of us?
I can appreciate the larger bottle concept, but are the drinks being poured into plastic cups? Are they being recycled or thrown away?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisKrsi -- Good point. But keep in mind that today, the cans are poured into cups... so the net cups are the same while the net cans are reduced.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne might suggest glass "cups", but then you have to look at both the cost of washing (versus recycling plastic) and the security. (Remember, you can't even get a butter knife any more!!) Assuming plastic cups, though, these need to be recycled. As someone who cleaned up innumerable fraternity parties, I can say it's a lot more efficient for an airline to recycle cups, which can be emptied and stacked, than bottles or cans. :-)
At American Airlines we nave been recycling cans for over 12 years. We too, at first, had resistance from some airports we fly to. Now, however, we have systems set up at nearly 90% of the airports we fly to. Flight Attendants recycle on flights where the time and space required are available (most flights) and the money raised goes to charity! This is something we, the Flight Attendants, along with our union (APFA) started, slowly garnering the help of our company over the first couple of years of the program. It has been a big success and we take great pride in it.
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