Special Report
Sustainability – a vision for waste
In our regular series on rubbish, we discuss recycling opportunities for the airline onboard hospitality sector with Jake Backus, customer sustainability director at Coca- Cola Europe
IATA has set a bold vision for the airline industry for carbon emissions. It is planned to stabilise aviation emissions growth from 2020 (carbon neutral growth) and to
halve emissions by 2050 versus 2005. Giovanni Bisigniani, director general and ceo of IATA said in his presentation, Building a Greener Future: “Our carbon footprint is growing. And this is not politically acceptable. To be blunt, the issue of the environment will limit our future until we move our thinking from tactical to strategic.” IATA has even set a clear intermediate metric
– to improve fuel efficiency by an average 1.5% each year to 2020. This will also yield no small amount of fuel cost savings.
Where we should be heading But what about a bold industry vision for on board hospitality? Of course, in climate change terms it is small compared to flying at altitude. However, with nearly 2.75 billion passengers per year expected by 2011, there is a lot to address, a lot going on, but also a lot more which could be achieved. This article will suggest a number of more sustainable avenues, but in terms of an overarching industry vision, my recommendation is Zero to Landfill as a long term goal. Clearly it will be a journey. Even if the environmental impact was marginal versus the climate impact of flying, the response to the question on individual actions of ‘it won’t make much difference’ is that you have a choice to be part of the problem or part of the solution. Essentially, airlines and their suppliers which fail to be part of the solution are declaring
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www.onboardhospitality.com
themselves to remain part of the problem. And with the value of used aluminium cans currently at over $1,036 per tonne (*2) and clear PET bottles £530 per tonne (*3) it is a valuable resource not to be wasted. Evidently there are complexities to be addressed such as the global nature of the industry, inconsistent and complex regulations, inconsistent waste management capacity at less advanced airports (eg: not all airports provide the facilities to accept mixed recyclables), a lack of transparency in the charging structure for waste management where there is clear (and additional) financial benefit to the airline, limited galley space for waste segregation, and some short flight times with many services to deliver. Nevertheless, we know that some airlines are
doing a good job. For example, Delta has created an in-flight recycling programme, which in 2009 recycled over 1,000 tons of aluminium, mixed paper and plastic from domestic flights serving 26 cities. Delta is recycling on average 1 million aluminium cans per month. In-flight recycling has fully funded the building of two Habitat for
Recycling comes easy at Manchester Airport
Humanity Homes (Atlanta in 2008 and Cincinnati in 2009) and there is a similar opportunity in the future. “The key to our inflight recycling programme has been our flight attendants and recycling partners,” said Helen Howes, Delta’s md, safety, health and environment. “They’ve embraced it with a lot of passion and we can thank them for the positive results we have seen.” Thomson Airways has taken a wide range of positive steps, working with their suppliers to identify areas where they can reduce waste, maximise recycling oportunities and optimise their resources. They have completed a successful onboard recycling trial during February and March this year and are now working to fully roll out onboard recycling into all UK airports from November 2010. This will collect mixed recyclables including plastic, paper and cans and with a public target to recycle 30% of their onboard waste this will equate to 13 tonnes of aluminium (over one million cans) per year. Thomson Airways is also potentially the first
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