British Airways Wants To Fuel Its Planes With Garbage

British Airways is teaming up with Washington D.C-based Solena Fuels to spin garbage into jet fuel in a project called "GreenSky" (via Jalopnik).

Solena is using something called plasma gasification to convert 551,000 tons of waste into gas. It will then use a chemical conversion to convert the gas into 16 million gallons of jet fuel annually, according to British Airways.

"The construction of the GreenSky London fuel facility at Thames Enterprise Park will lay the foundations for British Airways to reduce its carbon emissions significantly," said Willie Walsh, CEO of British Airways parent company IAG. "The sustainable jet fuel produced each year will be enough to power our flights from London City Airport twice over with carbon savings the equivalent of taking 150,000 cars off the road."

The facility is slated for completion in 2017.

Airlines have been struggling with the high cost of jet fuel, which now makes up 30-40% of their budgets. Air New Zealand, Lufthansa, and Virgin Atlantic have all been experimenting with algae-based fuels.