Originally Posted by
Often1
People who say that they are environmentally conscious tend only to look at the immediate issue, e.g. the plastic. If standard cutlery is used, that must be collected, washed, stored and delivered back to the aircraft. All of those functions have their own carbon footprint. In addition, in many countries, the US and Australia come to mind, anything which has touched food will need to be segregated and handled in a special facility.
Although I see your point, one could argue that the production process produces a big chunk of the carbon footprint of the cutlery.
Very crudely working out the numbers, I guess that an average longhaul flight that spans normal meal services would carry about 200 passengers in economy. One meal service pack usually contains a knife, fork, and 2 spoons, add the same again for the second service and you've got 8 items per passengers X 200 = 1600 items per flight. Double that if the aircraft does a turnaround and you've given out 3,200 items of cutlery. How many longhaul flights does BA run daily? I've no idea, but I think my initial figure of 'tens of thousands' daily might even be an underestimation. I think we're talking 300,000 plus items daily!!
300,000 metal items could be produced once and they'd last a long time, although you'd obviously get a percentage of those going 'astray'.
Compare that with producing 300,000 plastic items EVERYDAY that possibly go straight to the rubbish after the flight. Those items also have to be produced and transported to the airline, so the carbon footprint there is pretty hefty.
BA processes the metal cutlery for the premium cabins, so I see now reason why they couldn't do the same for economy. Money is the answer I would guess.
I would see the introduction of metal cutlery as a real improvement, not just for the quality of the product but also for the environmental impact.