Aircraft recycling

About 12,500 aircraft will reach their end-of-life in the next 20 years. The disposal of these aircraft is a major problem, which is why many companies have launched environmental programmes to address it. AFRA, with companies from Africa, Europe, and North America, means to provide an international perspective to assist the industry with the legal, regulatory and technical issues of aircraft recycling, promoting greater cooperation among governments and industries.

Of the 400 to 450 aircraft that are scrapped and disassembled globally each year, around one third of these aircraft are parted out and disassembled by AFRA member companies, producing upwards of 30,000 tons of and 1,800 tons of other specialty alloy metals for recycling, each year. All in all, AFRA members have dismantled more than 9,000 aircraft, with 7,000 from the commercial sector and 2,000 from the military.

It has been calculated that the market for aircraft parts is approximately $2 billion, but it is AFRA's belief that even greater financial value can be extracted from end-of-life activity.

recycling one aircraft can save over 3,341,250 tons of, 1,336,500,000 gallons of , gain almost 868,725/2 tons of per year