Worcester

Single biggest thing BA/IAG could do is to retire the older aircraft and replace with fuel efficient new ones.

flatlander

New fuel efficient working ones, yes.

Last I checked, Boeing is cranking out new aircraft as fast as they can, and Rolls Royce may eventually provide them with working engines. Can you make them do that faster? I mean, if you could solve RR's engine problems better than they can, I'm sure they'd pay you a handsome consultancy fee.

SteveF

I hope it doesn't get put into a container and shipped to China (banned since 1 January), Poland, India, Vietnam etc, for recycling where it is then classed as low quality mixed waste and then buried, burned or chucked in a river while the local authority back home ticks their "100% recycled" box.

I've a horrible feeling that this is a common occurrence and that a high percentage of our theoretically recyclable plastic and paper ends up being single use anyway.

https://news.sky.com/story/thousands...world-11218595

T8191

No, most of ours is done locally or in Europe. And the rest goes to our Energy from Waste plant.

WorldLux

I can't speak for other posters but the major problem of on-board garbage isn't that there's too much plastic but that it often has to go into a refusal incinerator, thereby undoing any effort to switch to eco friendly articles. BA could reduce garbage by using glasses, metal cutlery, etc across all classes, but that too will cause a number of undesirable consequences (more weight increasing fuel burn, glasses; plates and cutlery will have to be taken away, cleaned and reloaded onto the airplane ; etc.).

origin

I am not sure the aircraft companies are really pushing planes out as fast as they can, its helps them to have fat order books. The engines need a significant investments that we have seen in other industries.

TWCLAM

Whilst I am lead to believe there are supply issues regarding them at the moment maybe looking at paper straws would be a good alternative for BA to look at to replace plastic stirrers. They are in quite wide use in bars/ clubs here in Brighton. They would be light( I imagine the weight diff between the two products would be negligible) and as they could probably get two out of every one as they wouldn't need to be so big/ tall imo it would be a sensible option and more than happy for any BA staffers to take this suggestion and put it forward to whoever is incharge of such things( on the condition that if there's an employee reward scheme for such things my half is given to a worthy charity). They could obviously be used 'as is' in the lounges. One of my clients who owns a small chains of bars in Brighton uses them and their supplier guarantees that they are made of sustainable resources.

I would imagine that any company would be happy to produce them at half size, making them more suitable for flights, due to the numbers involved.

jfallesen

Can't get rid of those. They are required to wedge into various places to fix the 787s. :-)

TWCLAM

Principally in the Trent 1000's. Too soon?

I was also thinking that maybe they could save on plastic by issuing our cards in the metals after which they are named. It would help my case greatly if everybody could ignore the massive amount of resources needed/ wasted to extract said metals of course.

T8191

“I have created purest GREEN, My Lord”

chris1979

I personally think it would be great if BA took a lead and had a really close look at this - and not just from a cost angle.

I would, however, point out that many countries around the world have been taking 'this' seriously for some time - so the fact that the UK woke up to 'it' recently and the government is trying to do something about it (so that it's not just all Brexit), hasn't lead to a worldwide movement per so - I know many European countries where every household has numerous bins for recycling and other 'green' initiatives.

mjh0

Given that in many cases rubbish from inbound International flights has to be incinerated to meet local health and agriculture laws, the way forward for larger International airports - large enough to generate enough rubbish - would be to operate an Energy from Waste plant which is appropriately certified to render any hazards that may be contained in the waste inert. The EFW plant then provides power and steam/hot water to run the airport facilities.

Interestingly the Heathrow Energy centre (which provides CHP facilities for T2 and T5) runs on woodchip biomass, but it's unclear if they also co-fire airport waste. It appears not.

Jagboi

Where I live we have had a bottle deposit scheme since 1972. You pay a deposit that varies with the size of the container, from 10 cents to 25 cents when you buy a beverage, and when you take the empties back to a return depot you get the deposit back. The glass bottles are washed and returned to the brewery/bottler for reuse or wine bottles are crushed and made into new bottles; plastic is melted and reformed back into containers (primarily milk jugs). Aluminium cans are melted and made into new sheet aluminium for making into new cans, as apparently the alloy to make cans is unique to that application.

Right now the return rates compared to the number of containers sold is:
Glass:92.9%
Aluminium: 91%
plastic:91%

Overall, I think those are amazingly high return/reuse rates for a consumer program, but the program has been operating for so long that taking the empties back is just one of those things you do. A good fundraiser too for groups like Scouts who have bottle drives to collect bottles and get the refund for their activities. A side benefit is you'll never see bottles and cans in roadside litter since they are easily convertible into cash!

13901

The non-recyclable rubbish from BA - both from the ground and in the air - goes to Grundon, who operates the big incinerator just on the other side of the M25, where it's turned into cinder blocks, energy and a bit of emissions by the wayside.

VC10 Boy