Aircraft recycling

Aircraft recycling is the process of scrapping and disassembling retired aircraft, and re-purposing their parts as spare parts or scrap. Airplanes are made of around 800 to 1000 parts that can be recycled, with the majority of them made from metal alloys and composite materials. The two most common metal alloys are aluminum and titanium and the main composite material is carbon fiber. Airplanes are disassembled at aircraft-recycling centers where non-metal components with no recycle value are discarded, major components are dismantled and metal alloy components are sorted based on their composition. The metal alloys are then remelted together to form a single homogenous alloy from scraps. It is estimated that roughly 400-450 airplanes are disassembled and recycled annually which drives the $2 billion aircraft parts market. The main challenge in aircraft recycling is ensuring that the amount of metal impurities within recycled aircraft material is low so that they can be reused in other airplanes. Some major limitations in aircraft recycling include cost, impurities in alloys, hazardous materials, and the quality of recycled components. Parts that cannot be directly recycled can be reused or upcycled into artwork, clothing, and furniture. In the twentieth century, most aircraft were not recycled; old planes were abandoned in landfills. In the early 2000s, Airbus and Boeing, two of the largest airplane manufacturing companies developed systemic recycling processes to deal with their retired planes and parts as an alternative to moving them to landfills. In 2005, Airbus launched the project “Process for Advanced Management of End-of-Life of Aircraft” known as PAMELA, which demonstrated that 85% of an aircraft’s weight can be recycled or reused. Airbus partnered with the waste management company, Suez-Sita and set-up a recycling facility at the Tarbes Airport. The project was tested on the Airbus A300 and was successfully completed when 61 tonnes of the original plane weight were recycled 32 months later in 2007.