Where Do Airplanes Go When They Die?
by Michael Graham Richard, Gatineau, Canada on 10. 2.06
Martin Fraissignes who runs the Chateauroux airport in central France estimates that 8,000 aircrafts could be retired in the next decade. Add that to the thousands that have already been, um, taken for a walk behind the shed since the big boom in commercial air travel in the 1970s (most planes have a life of around 30 years), and it's starting to be a serious problem. Airplanes contain many toxic materials and they are not covered by the End of Life Vehicles Regulations that pass the cost of dismantling cars onto manufacturers. According to Bill Glover, Boeing's director of environmental performance for commercial aeroplanes, many planes are not handled safely after their retirement. He even talks about some of them being dumped inot waterways and the sea.
Concerned by this and aware that getting rid of aeroplanes was only going to become more of an issue, Boeing set up the Aircraft Fleet Recycling Association (Afra). It's a union of recycling companies with two airports - Chateauroux in central France and Evergreen Air Centre in Arizona.
Planes are dismantled. Parts that can still be used are sold and metals are separated for recycling.
But in years to come, plane recycling will become less of an exercise in processing scrap metal.Increasingly, aircraft are being made of carbon fibre - the substance makes up 50% of Boeing's 787. And this, says the company's Bill Glover, presents a new recycling challenge.
Carbon fiber presents a special challenge, but it is also a great opportunity: At the Milled Carbon factory in West Bromwich, a 20 minute process is used to recycled carbon fiber into a product so good that Boeing says it can be used in airplanes again.
And there is more hope for the future: Both Boeing (with Afra -- Aircraft Fleet Recycling Association) and Airbus (with Pamela -- Process for Advanced Management of End of Life Aircraft) claim that they want to prempt government regulations and set up best practices for the safe disposal and recycling of aircrafts. To know how well that will turn out, we'll have to keep an eye on it in the coming years.
For more: ::European Jet Plane Recycling Center
::Where old aeroplanes go to die, ::Afra. See also: ::Future Planes Might be "Flying Wings"
Some months ago the History Channel did a program called The Bone Yard (they re-run it every so often). It is very interesting to see the various places where machines are broken up and recycled. It is good to see that a AFRA exists to deal with the end of life of aircraft. It would be even better if we also had a SFRA as in Ship Fleet recycling. Anyone who has seen the pictures and video of the ship breakers knows what I mean and if you don't please look it up.
The end-of-life issues for products large and small need to be delt with.
I thought most planes sit in some Arizona desert and parts reused before they are recycled. For the ships are you talking about the place in India? Where they beach them and just start cutting?
Yup the aircraft refurbishment, parting out and recycling in the desert doesn't strike me as too bad. AFRA looks like a good step to making EOL for aircraft a better process. I can't see dumping a plane in the ocean, the metal alone should make recycling worth it.
The India shipbreakers, wow where does one begin, the pictures and video blow your mind. I guess it would cost more to ship products if the shippers had to pay for proper disposal.
Here's a link about it: http://www.pulitzer.org/year/1998/investigative-reporting/works/day3/1.html
We did a post about shipbreaking.
Tim, I guess that recycling the metals is worth it or not depending on the cost of raw materials, on how much it costs to move the plane to where it can be recycled (if it can't fly anymore, esp.) and on how complex it is to separate the metals from each other and from other materials (many of them toxic).
I'm sure in some places and at some points in time, it was deemed not worth it at all.
I've not heard of dumping planes into the ocean, but I have ships. I just watched a show on Discovery about the sinking of an aircraft carrier for an artificial reef. Why not recycle all that steel? Is it possible? Do artificial reefs work?
Well, if they can reuse the carbon fiber again in another airplane then they have a technical nutrient according to MBDC Cradle-to-Cradle certification. Now if they could only find a way to make the fuel clean the air as it flies!