A New Aircraft Recycling Program for Thermoplastic Composites

July 9, 2025

Airbus is collaborating with Toray Advanced Composites and several other companies to launch a new aircraft recycling program for commercial aircraft production: (Image: Toray Advanced Composites)

Toray Advanced Composites, Daher, and TARMAC Aerosave recently announced the launch of a joint End-of-Life Aerospace Recycling Program for commercial aircraft production. Working with Airbus, this collaborative initiative will focus on advancing recycling technology practices in aerospace manufacturing by recovering and reusing end-of-life secondary structural components made from continuous fiber-reinforced thermoplastic composites.

The project aims to extend the useful life of composite materials and contribute to the aviation industry’s Net Zero goals by developing remanufacturing processes and creating a closed-loop recycling system—minimizing waste and driving recycling innovation across the aerospace industry. The initiative aims to re-utilize secondary structural thermoplastic (TP) parts from End-of-Life Airbus A380 aircraft and repurpose them for other aeronautical applications.

“Sorting and recovering the materials that make up an aircraft is in the DNA of TARMAC Aerosave. We are constantly working to improve our recycling rate, which currently stands at 92 percent. This joint work on the re-use of thermoplastic composites contributes to our expertise in A380 recycling and our contribution to the eco-design of the new generation of aircraft,” said Alexandre Brun, President of TARMAC Aerosave.

Expertise from the aerospace and materials sectors is being brought together in this collaborative initiative. Airbus provides support for the advanced material reuse framework, while TARMAC Aerosave will ensure components are dismantled without damage, preserving material integrity. Daher is leading the reshaping and the quality validation (performed as serial production conditions) of repurposed parts, while Toray, as a materials supplier, is monitoring the material quality for the second-life application.

At the core of this initiative is the end-of-life recycling of the A380 pylon cover, specifically the Toray Cetex® TC1100 (carbon/PPS) thermoplastic composite structure. As thermoplastic parts become more prevalent in next-generation aircraft, this pilot case sets the foundation for new methodologies in recycling, repurposing, and reprocessing composite materials. The A380 alone contains over 10,000 flying parts made from continuous fiber-reinforced thermoplastic composites, making it an ideal platform for testing and validating recycled material recovery practices.

"Thermoplastic materials offer great potential for recycling. Through this initiative, we aim to build on that strength by exploring new opportunities for recycling technology development — where our high-performance materials are not just recycled, but meaningfully reused and reintegrated into other structural aerospace applications,” says Scott Unger, CEO Toray Advanced Composites. “As demand for commercial aircraft continues to increase, it is critical we make progress on recyclability of thermoplastic and thermoset composite materials, and reduce the impact of our industry on the environment.”

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