17 August 2020: Boeing recently received the 2020 Sustainability Leadership Award from the National Association of Manufacturers. The award recognizes the company’s innovative efforts to recycle aerospace carbon fibre, diverting waste away from landfills across the globe.
Since 2018, Boeing has partnered with UK-based ELG Carbon Fibre to recycle excess aerospace carbon fibre. Boeing collects the scrap material, which ELG then treats in a furnace to remove binding agents. The result of this process is clean material that can be sold to third parties to make products such as electronic accessories and automotive equipment.
“Boeing is demonstrating that you can be environmentally sustainable in a cost effective way,” said Bryan Scott, vice president of Environment, Health & Safety at Boeing. “We are the largest consumer of aerospace-grade composite and the only company able to recycle 100per cent of it.”
The carbon fibre recycling process has now been implemented at 11 of Boeing’s global airplane manufacturing sites. Most excess carbon fibre comes from sites in Australia, the Puget Sound region of Washington state, and Salt Lake City, Utah. Boeing will train companies on the recycling process, beginning with its supply chain.
“Creating commercially viable solutions for recycling carbon fibre composites is good for the industry and good for the environment – it’s a win-win,” said Tia Benson Tolle, director of Advanced Materials in Product Development at Boeing.
Boeing is working to achieve several environmental goals by 2025, which include reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 25 per cent; water use and solid waste to landfill by 20 per cent; energy use by 10 per cent; and hazardous waste at worksites by 5 per cent. Boeing’s industry-leading fuel efficient product offerings and work with industry stakeholders are enabling aviation to achieve a global approach to carbon-neutral growth from 2020 onward and a 50 per cent reduction in CO2 emissions by 2050 compared to 2005 levels.
