Dubai based Emirates Airlines is unveiling a new closed loop recycling initiative this month, where millions of onboard items such as plastic trays, bowls, snack and casserole dishes, will now be recycled in a local facility and remade into fresh, ready-to-use Emirates meal service products.
Marking United Nations World Environment Day on 5 June, and the them of’BeatPlasticPollution’, Emirates said it will introduce the new recycled utensils onboard from June 2023.
This is just as the airline has announced plans to order between 100 and 150 jets to replace Airbus A380s as they start to be retired later this decade.
In line with Emirates’ commitment to consuming responsibly, the new initiative is a transition to the principles of a circular economy, whereby items are reduced, reused, and recycled.
Millions of old and damaged meal service items from Economy and Premium Economy Class dining will be collected after flights, washed and checked for damage, transported to a facility in Dubai to be ground down, reprocessed, and manufactured into new dishes, bowls and trays before being sent to Emirates Flight Catering to be used again for thousands of meals in the sky.
In partnership with deSter FZE UAE, a leading provider of service ware concepts to the aviation industry, and expert in closed loop manufacturing, Emirates will be reusing plastic materials that have already reached their end of life and would otherwise need to be written off.
The new trays, casseroles, snack dishes and bowls, potentially containing around 25% reused material (recyclate),will be brought back into service on aircraft across the globe, and the proportion will continue to increase over time.
The team at deSter are members of the CE100 network, which includes some of the world’s leading circular economy companies and have also been awarded the ‘Gold’ Sustainability rating from Ecovadis, a globally recognized certification for sustainable practices.
Emirates elected to work with deSter once a facility in UAE was ready to facilitate the huge scale of Emirates’ requirement substantially reducing the carbon footprint of sending the products to another country to be recycled.
The deSter factory also incorporates sustainable design principles focusing on solar power, efficient use of water and minimization of waste.
Emirates Airline is committed to reducing plastic waste and has already implemented several initiatives in addition to the new closed loop recycling project while it has diverted over 150 million single-use plastic items from landfill each year by replacing plastic straws, inflight retail bags, and stirrers with responsibly sourced paper and wooden alternatives.
Economy and Premium Economy Class passengers can get comfortable with soft blankets onboard, where each blanket is manufactured from 28 recycled plastic bottles. Over the course of one year, this initiative saves 88 million plastic bottles from landfill.
Emirates’ current range of inflight toy bags, baby amenity kits and plush toys are made from recycled plastic bottles, and over 8 million plastic bottles were repurposed during 12 months of amenity kit production. The hygiene covers for bowls on Emirates meal trays and plastic tumblers are made from 80% recycled plastic (rPET).
Emirates Economy and Premium Economy amenity kits are made from alternative materials such as kraft paper, rice paper and recycled plastic, reducing the consumption of virgin plastic.
Emirates Cabin Crew segregate glass and plastic bottles for recycling in Dubai, diverting about 500,000 kilograms of plastic and glass from landfill in 2022.
Presently, the world’s biggest international airline has on order 50 A350-900s, 30 787-9s and 115 Boeing 777Xs even as it operates 119 A380s, 123 Boeing 777-300ERs and 10 Boeing 777-200LRs.
According to the report by Bloomberg, Emirates’ President, Tim Clark revealed that the 777X aircraft will replace the A380s in the fleet of the airline, while the A350s and 787s will eventually replace the 777s.
With the 777X, A350 and 787 in various sized models the airline will have a balanced coverage of seats between 250 and 265, depending upon the configuration and market.
Tim Clark said the order will be announced at the upcoming Dubai Air Show in November this year.
Emirates had tried to get Airbus to build an updated model of the A380 but no other airlines were interested and the project was dropped with production of the super jumbo terminated in 2021.
