It was 38 years ago this weekend that the Boeing 747, the “jumbo jet”, first rolled out of a factory in Everett, Washington State. For many people, the jumbo ruled the skies, but time is now up for the early 747s.
The life span of most commercial aeroplanes is said to be around 30 years; and so, just as there was a 1970s explosion in aircraft production, now there’s a big jump in the number of planes beyond use.
What’s to be done with them? Aircraft contain toxic materials, so dumping them at a far-off airfield or throwing them in the sea is clearly unacceptable. 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.
A visit to Chateauroux is slightly unnerving. The airport is run by Martin Fraissignes (also the executive director of Afra), who estimates as many as 8,000 aircraft may be retired in the next decade.
Heaps of metal and tangled wire litter Chateauroux’s concrete surface on which all the dismantling and recycling takes place. Parts that still work are taken away for re-sale. Metals are separated for re-use. 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.
Aircraft aren’t covered by the End of Life Vehicles Regulations that pass the cost of dismantling cars onto manufacturers; but that could change and Afra, says Mr Davidson, is keen to pre-empt new laws.
“We’re going to do it before they tell us to do it, and we’re going to come up with practices we can live with and which are better than maybe they can enforce because this is our business.” [...]
[tags]France,Chateauroux,Boeing,aircraft,recycling[/tags]
