Airports, it’s time to recycle! I recently returned home from a cross-country trip to Michigan, spending an excessive amount of time in several different airports. Due to the time and circumstances of my layovers, I was forced to have my coffee and meals of the day at a couple of different hubs and purchase some reading material to entertain the delay. Like any good environmentalist, I brought my own reusable coffee cup and water bottle, asked for my meals for “here” instead of “to go” and donated my magazines to the passengers waiting next to me. Although I was making an effort to reduce my own personal waste, I was still appalled that there was absolutely no sign of recycling anywhere. The garbage bins were overflowing with newspapers, magazines, plastic to-go containers, aluminum cans, and water bottles. When ordering coffee, one barista told me that my reusable coffee cup was against the “health code” so I had to settle for plastic (I immediately took my business elsewhere ☺) and several food vendors only offered food in throw away containers. The reality of the waste problem in these airports sat with me on my entire flight home. After doing some research, I realized that the truth is: airports are simply way behind when it comes to recycling.
As you may imagine, the majority of the waste accumulated at airports is found in terminal public areas and airport administrative offices, terminal retail and restaurant concession areas, and on the airplanes themselves. Most of this waste, actually 75% of it, is recyclable. Unfortunately, however, airports have a recycling rate much lower than the national average, and this includes airports with the best recycling systems in place. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) released a report several years ago surveying over 60 airports on their recycling efforts. Of the 30 airports that actually responded, they concluded that, “The U.S. airline industry discards enough aluminum cans each year to build 58 Boeing 747 airplanes. And aluminum waste is just the tip of the iceberg: The airline industry discarded 9,000 tons of plastic in 2004 and enough newspapers and magazines to fill a football field to a depth of more than 230 feet.”1 The survey also concluded that each passenger generates about 1.28 pounds of waste, equaling about one-third of the total amount of waste generated by Americans each day.2 It is shocking to think that the 30 largest airports in the country generate about as much waste as a large, metropolitan city like Minneapolis.
However, there is hope and a future for recycling programs in airports. The NRDC estimates that, “If airports and airlines recycled as much as the average U.S. recycling rate, enough energy would be saved each year to power 20,000 U.S. households, and carbon emissions would be reduced by an amount equal to removing 80,000 cars from the road annually.”3 Several airports across the country have already taken the lead on this effort. At Florida’s Fort Lauderdale Airport, their recycling program, “saved enough energy in 2004 (from reduced landfill and incinerator use) to power 502 households and reduce[d] greenhouse gas emissions by an amount equal to removing 596 passenger cars from the road for a year.”4 Also, Oregon’s Portland International Airport and Washington State’s Seattle-Tacoma International Airport offer programs above and beyond the average recycling bins. In Portland, the airport not only collects cooking oil to convert to biodiesel, but it also donates in flight magazines from their overseas flight to Frankfurt to local classrooms for their German language classes. Likewise, Seattle collects cooking oil for use as biodiesel and their food/coffee composting program generates a savings of over $100,000 a year in disposal costs. The Seattle-Tacoma airport also donates unused food, including pre-packaged sandwiches, to local food banks. Fortunately, like the examples already noted, many of the cities that house the largest airports in the country have regional recycling standards that will hopefully influence the airlines themselves.
Because the waste management systems at airports can be centralized, decentralized, or a combination of both, finding a cohesive national airport recycling program is close to impossible. Of the airports surveyed by the NRDC, most of them preferred a centralized system of waste management, making recycling programs easier to enforce.5 Under a centralized system, an airport could hire a recycling coordinator and work with other airports to streamline a system, making the recycling process more familiar for airport employees and passengers. However, the challenge still remains with educating the masses and implementing a system in the first place. With the financial incentives and the environmental impact resulting from recycling, I do hope that newly constructed airports or terminals under construction take it into consideration. The Environmental Protection Agency created a program called “Recycle on the Go” that will hopefully pick up in airports, as well. For more information about their program, go to: http://www.epa.gov/osw/conserve/rrr/rogo/index.htm. To read the full report, titled “Trash Landings,” by the NRDC, check out: www.nrdc.org/cities/recycling/airline/airline.pdf.
Next time you travel or spend time in an airport, take note of the recycling program in place, and then think about what you can do to minimize the amount of waste you generate. It may be easier than you think!
