Reducing our waste through circularity

The Group's ambition is to have zero single-use plastics by 2027¹ and zero general waste to landfill by 2030.²

As part of our efforts, we're working with our employees, suppliers, customers, and State and Federal Governments to drive waste reduction initiatives, including:

• Minimising waste through more efficient inflight and ground operations,
  
• Introducing innovative product and packaging alternatives targeted at removing single-use plastics and reducing waste to landfill,
  
• Replacing plastic cutlery in our domestic network with responsibly sourced wooden cutlery, and
  
• Expanding waste material recovery pathways, including recycling, processing of organic material composting, specialty recycling trials, and exploring waste to energy.
  

By the end of FY23, we have removed or replaced more than 200 million single-use plastics from our operations since 2019.³

We continue to identify opportunities to reduce plastics across our operations and in our inflight service where possible, while considering safety, hygiene, and various regulatory requirements. 

This includes the introduction of compostable hot meal boxes on domestic flights, responsibly sourced wooden cutlery, bamboo drink stirrers, changes to our amenity kits, phasing out single-serve condiments in our lounges and trialling reduced thickness pallet wrap and protective sheeting made of 100% recycled plastic in Freight operations.

We are working with our suppliers to increase the use of recycled and renewable materials and consider the environmental impact in the design phase of our products.

Since 2011, the Qantas Group has been a signatory to the Australian Packaging Covenant, working to improve the sustainability of the packaging we use.

We also recycled 2,841 tonnes of waste in FY23, representing 23 per cent of total waste diverted, and we're aiming to reach 40 per cent. This will be supported through the reintroduction onboard recycling which was paused during the pandemic.