Airline Food Waste Is a Problem
Airline Food Waste Is a Problem.
From disposable headphones and plastic cutlery to food scraps and toilet waste, the average airline passenger leaves behind over three pounds of garbage, according to one estimate. To get travelers and airlines thinking — and talking — about that rather large pile of trash, a British design firm has refashioned the economy meal tray, replacing plastic with renewable materials such as coffee grounds, banana leaves and coconut wood.
Jo Rowan is the associate strategy director of the firm, PriestmanGoode, which has spent more than two decades applying design thinking to the air travel experience, including airport lounges and cabin seating.
Now, she said, the firm is turning its attention to the less “glamorous” side of things.
“Onboard waste is a big issue,” she said. “Knowing that you have four billion passengers per year, it all adds up very quickly.”
The redesigned items are featured in an exhibit, “Get Onboard: Reduce.Reuse.Rethink,” that opened last month at the Design Museum in London.
By far the biggest environmental issue with air travel — and the reason the 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg opted to sail to New York from Europe in August, rather than fly — is the associated carbon emissions, which are growing at a faster rate than predicted in previous, already dire projections.
But as air travel becomes increasingly accessible, and as more people take to the skies, airlines have been making public pledges to curb their environmental footprints, including the plastic forks and leftovers their passengers leave behind.
