Our world has finite resources and the demand for them is increasing.

Recycling what we use is becoming essential for a sustainable future.

In the aerospace industry we have a particular responsibility.

Rhenium, hafnium, tantalum, and titanium are just some of the exotic metals needed to make the alloys that go into today's advanced aero engines.

Over 20,000 tonnes of these alloys are used each year by Rolls-Royce. That's why it makes good business sense, and good environmental sense, for us to recycle as much metal as we can.

Every one of our manufacturing facilities, in over 100 locations around the world, is part of a recycling programme we call 'Revert' where we recover, recycle and reuse waste metals in manufacturing, so that these can be melted again and turned into new aerospace alloys.

Over the past decade we have developed processes to remove coatings, separate alloys and clean up the waste metal. Unserviceable engine parts and waste metals from machining and casting processes are recovered and reused. Rhenium alloys from turbine blades are processed and re-melted.

Almost half of a used aero engine can now be recycled and the quality of the recovered material is now so high that the metals can be safely used again to make a new engine.

Through Revert, we save 20,000 MWh of energy each year. That's enough energy to power 1.8 million homes for a day. This saves 9,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide - that's the same amount of CO2 emitted if a car travelled around the world 1,500 times.

Revert is making a big difference. We reduce our demand for raw materials, we use less energy, we produce fewer emissions and we save costs.

Rolls-Royce, better power for a changing world.

Latest news RSS