Dying aircrafts land at Twente Airport, AELS and Riwald together demolish and recycle; aluminium hugely releases

It is said that dying aircraft proudly lands at Twente airport and then they never take off again, but ultimately enter the mouth of the metal shredder of Riwald Recycling in Almelo.

Riwald Recycling from Almelo and Aircrafts –End-of-Life solutions provider, AELS have entered into a partnership and together they permanently dismantle old aircraft. After flying for millions of kilometres, they are ready for retirement and out of time, unprofitable and ready for demolition. However, the well-functioning parts go 'onto the market' and are reused, but if the people from AELS (Aircraft End-of-Life Solutions) at Twente airport have removed the usable parts, there will still be tens of tonnes of metals left and that’s the place where metal processor Riwald comes into the picture.

Presently, metal processing companies are also users of modern equipment to separate high-quality waste and have to meet all kinds of sustainability requirements. In Twente, Riwald is the company that - in the words of co-owner Ewald Huzink - is at the top of this.

According to Huzink, that is why AELS chose his company to do business with. “AELS called us to ask if we could do something for them. This is how contact came about. They were looking for a professional company. We are. I think we are at the forefront of sustainability and circular entrepreneurship in the Netherlands. We can recycle between 95 and 100%. We have a complete factory for this in Almelo. What we can do is unique.”

The demolition of aircraft remains is largely done on location. “We have a team of four to six men there who help AELS. They do not work there constantly, but only when we can use a device there. The parts are largely processed on location. We put them in large containers that we then transport to Almelo for further processing. ”

The vast majority of the material released is aluminium. The metal consumes tremendous energy to get produced so that it can be more re-used.

Huzink added: “Aircraft are mainly made of aluminium. How much material comes off an aircraft is very different. This varies enormously from a few dozen tonnes to hundreds. It is not only aluminium, by the way, also other metals, but that is much less. ”

The result of the agreement with AELS is that Ewald Huzink now looks at aircraft from a whole new perspective because it could theoretically be the case that a plane in which he makes a flight himself ends up in pieces at his company in Almelo.