London City Airport is launching an eight-week challenge for innovators to design or further develop a new, sustainable, sealable security bag for use at the airport.
Last year, almost 150 million passengers departed from UK airports, many of them required to put liquids gels and pastes into a plastic bag for security screening. That means that at London City Airport alone, more than two million single-use plastic bags are used by passengers every year. New security CT scanners will allow liquids to stay in passengers’ bags, but until this technology is more widely used at airports, non-recyclable plastic bags will remain the norm.
The winner of the Sustainable Security Bag Challenge will receive £10,000 (US$12,825), get to trial their product at the airport, and if successful, earn a commercial contract to supply it to London City Airport.
Alison FitzGerald, chief operating officer at London City Airport, said, “As part of our aim to become the most sustainable airport in the UK, we want to find an innovative product that provides an alternative to the plastic bags, used often just once, found at airport security across the globe.
“So now London City Airport has posed the challenge to innovators across London and beyond, to show us what you have or what might be possible, and help develop a usable product that could become the industry standard.”
London City Airport continues to reduce waste in other areas of the business, including the conversion of all its coffee waste to biofuel, with bio-bean, turning four tons of coffee waste into a sustainable fuel source last year. To reduce the amount of plastic waste across the airport, London City Airport was also the first UK airport to ban single-use plastic straws.