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Dubai-based Emirates airline has unveiled a new closed loop recycling initiative to introduce new recycled utensils onboard from June onwards.
Millions of onboard items, such as plastic trays, bowls, snack and casserole dishes, will be recycled in deSter FZE facility in the UAE and remade into fresh, ready-to-use Emirates meal service products, the airline said in a statement on Thursday.
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, containing at least 25 percent reused material (recyclate), will be brought back into service on aircraft across the globe, and the proportion will continue to increase over time, the statement added.
Emirates elected to work with deSter, a provider of service-ware concepts to the aviation industry, once a facility in UAE was ready to facilitate the huge scale of its requirement, substantially reducing the carbon footprint of sending the products to another country to be recycled.
The deSter factory incorporates sustainable design principles focusing on solar power, efficient water use and waste minimisation, the airline said.
(Writing by P Deol; Editing by Anoop Menon)
