Atlanta: An Airport Case Study in Trying to Manage Plastic Waste
Photo Credit: Atlanta International Airport is revising its schedule for achieving zero waste. Flickr / Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport
Skift Take
To reduce plastic waste, airports have to work with airlines, concessionaires, travelers, designers, local governments, and other parties. That's a lot of people to educate and much behavior to influence.
Airlines are big perpetrators of plastic pollution in the aviation industry, but airports are part of the equation as well, and their attention is being pulled in many directions. The airport is not only concerned with the plastic waste that comes off of planes, but the terminal is filled with concessionaires selling food, beverage, and retail to travelers in plastic packaging — travelers who may or may not care to recycle properly, or at all.
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport has an especially large waste management operation. The airport was ranked the world's busiest by Airports Council International, ahead of Beijing and Dubai, serving 107 million passengers in 2018. Atlanta's airport is on track to serve 110 million people in 2019, according to Liza Milagro, resilience and sustainability manager, averaging 275,000 passengers daily.
With nearly 300,000 people catching flights in a single day, that amounts to a lot of refuse in Atlanta.
The airport previous
