How some facilities are doing their part for the environment

RECYCLE THIS

Recycling your used bottles, cans and newspapers is a snap at Portland (Maine) International Jetport. Through EcoMaine, a state recycling company, the airport offers passengers “single-sort” recycling receptacles for all recyclables. (“Single-sort” means you toss everything in one bin; it’s EcoMaine’s job to sort the items out later.) At Germany’s Munich Airport, there’s a different kind of recycling going on. There, organic waste from the airport’s kitchens and restaurants is collected and sent to a pig farm to be used as feed. And earlier this year, the Clean Airport Partnership, a nonprofit working to green airport operations, named Seattle-Tacoma International Airport as one of America’s greenest airports for, among other things, composting 145 tons of coffee grounds per year and recycling 1,000 gallons of used cooking oil a month for biodiesel fuel production.

POWER UP

Airports don’t need to set up wind turbines next to their runways to harness wind power—they can just follow Philadelphia International Airport’s lead. Last year, PHL purchased enough Pennsylvania-generated wind power from the PECO Wind program to supplement the airport’s power for five years. The commitment was the largest renewable energy purchase among airports nationwide and earned PHL a Green Power Award from the Citizens for Pennsylvania’s Future. Other airports soak up the sun for their power, such as Munich Airport and Switzerland’s Zürich Airport. Back in the States, San Francisco International Airport has installed 2,800 solar panels on top of its Terminal 3, which provide 100 percent of the terminal’s energy needs. As far as alternative energy goes, it can do more than just heat and cool terminals—it can run a fleet of buses and trucks, too, as happens at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport, which recently converted 100 percent of its light- to medium-duty fleet—as well as 100 percent of its bus and shuttle fleet—to run on compressed natural gas and hydrogen-based fuel.

—Leah Ingram