Strategies for the 100 per cent recyclable aircraft

The next time you crack open a cold aluminum beer can, consider this: in a previous life that can might have been flying 30,000 feet above your head as part of an aeroplane fuselage.

The aerospace sector has launched several initiatives in recent years to reduce its environmental footprint, including ambitious goals for CO2 emissions such as carbon-neutral growth beginning in 2020 and a 50 per cent reduction in emissions from 2005 levels by 2050.

But it faces a major challenge when it comes to recycling aircraft.

Exact numbers are difficult to come by, said Keith Lawless, senior director of business sustainability and improvement for Air Transat, but roughly 2,000 aircraft currently reside in aeroplane commentaries and approximately 12,000 more are expected to join them over the next 20 years as they reach the end of their service life.

“We will have a huge problem on our hands,” Lawless said in a presentation to aerospace students, academics and industry executives at a case study competition hosted by AeroMontreal, a Quebec think tank for the sector, on Oct. 1 at Montreal’s École de technologie supérieure (ÉTS).

Though some manufacturers are making great strides to recycle more and more of their aircraft, on average less than 50 per cent of an aircraft is recycled today, and most of the material winds up overseas “where women and children living in pitiful conditions pilfer through the materials for little or no pay,” he said.

With few recognized aeroplane recyclers and the cost of scrap metal in sharp decline, for most airline operators it makes more financial sense to place retired planes in an aircraft boneyard, Lawless acknowledged. He noted that in 2006, Airbus, with the support of the European Commission, initiated a project known as the Process for Advanced Management of End of-Life-Aircraft (PAMELA) to recycle aircraft parts. The estimated cost to dismantle one plane was pegged at 3.2 million euros (approx. $4.2 million).

“It is difficult to recycle an aircraft because its parts are complex. We can throw an aluminum can into the recycling bin and often it just becomes another can or may become something more exotic such as a toaster,” he said. “But with an airplane it is more difficult, especially with old aircraft, because they don’t have any eco-design built in.”

In 2014, Air Transat conducted a widely praised and publicized project to recycle two airplanes. It took a full year to plan, Lawless said, but in two days a demolition team dismantled one entire plane and was able to reuse 87 per cent of the material. “It could go into beer cans, it could go anywhere,” he joked.

Plastics, insulation and composite materials were the only things the project was unable to recycle. And the latter, in particular, poses a larger challenge for the sector as more and more air structures relying on composite materials to reduce weight.

“It’s a big challenge,” Lawless acknowledged in an interview with Skies after his presentation. “That is exactly the reason I am involved with these groups. You want to find a solution, because we have some [Airbus] A330s that we might have to dismantle at a certain point.”

“The problem with composites is that their strength is their weakness,” he added. “They are super strong but you can’t do anything with them. You can take metal and turn it into a bicycle, but composites you can’t break with a sledge hammer.”

Much has been written about the environmental considerations that were factored into the C Series when Bombardier Commercial Aircraft first introduced the twin-engine, medium-range jet airliner. And the company has touted the fact that it is the first aircraft manufacturer to release an environmental product declaration verifying the impact of components throughout the lifecycle of the aircraft.

But disassembly was also a critical feature of the design process, said Kahina Oudjehani, Bombardier’s  head of eco-design and environmental affairs for product development engineering.

“Everyone was thinking about the aircraft design…and now we also think about its disassembly,” she said in a presentation on the company’s effort to integrate an environmental lifecycle approach into the C Series program. “We have a responsibility within our industry to reduce our footprint.”

Planning for the end-of-life requirements of an aircraft is one of the four phases of Bombardier’s eco-design process. The company works with its suppliers to reduce its environmental impact by selecting better materials and reducing the number of chemical substances used in the manufacturing process, but ensuring much of the aircraft can be recycled must be part of the initial design phase, she said.

As an example, Oudjehani described an aircraft seat that would use 66 per cent fewer parts and require far less energy to manufacture. At present, about 80 per cent of a C Series aircraft can be recycled.

The presentations were part of a case study competition held during Montreal Civil Aviation Week in which student teams from seven local universities and technical colleges where challenged to design a strategy toward a 100 per cent recyclable aircraft. In a format modelled on the popular Dragons’ Den television show, the four finalists had to defend their projects in front of a panel of experts.

Montreal is a globally recognized hub for civil aviation that relies on the strength of its educational programs and investment in research and development, said Suzanne Benoit, president of AeroMontreal. Retaining its young talent is critical for future growth.

“The aerospace industry is generating a lot of interest among young people. We need to maintain that passion and support them to ensure a quality and vital succession,” she said. “These kinds of initiatives help to promote the ingenuity of our youth and spark their interest in the sector.”