A Nature Sustainability study finds municipal solid waste can be converted into sustainable aviation fuel that may cut lifecycle emissions by about 80–90% compared with conventional jet kerosene. Researchers estimate waste-derived fuel could supply roughly 62.5 billion liters per year, potentially reducing aviation emissions by around 16%. The study highlights green hydrogen as an enhancement and identifies gasification as the main technical challenge; practical rollout will depend on feedstock logistics, plant design and policy support.
Turning Trash into Jet Fuel: Breakthrough Could Power Planes and Cut Emissions by up to 90%
A Nature Sustainability study finds municipal solid waste can be converted into sustainable aviation fuel that may cut lifecycle emissions by about 80–90% compared with conventional jet kerosene. Researchers estimate waste-derived fuel could supply roughly 62.5 billion liters per year, potentially reducing aviation emissions by around 16%. The study highlights green hydrogen as an enhancement and identifies gasification as the main technical challenge; practical rollout will depend on feedstock logistics, plant design and policy support.
02:59 PM, 11/17/2025Environment
Researchers say municipal waste could be a major source of sustainable aviation fuel
Commercial aviation accounts for roughly 2.5% of global greenhouse-gas emissions, while the wider transportation sector makes up about 16.2% of CO2 emissions. A new international study published in Nature Sustainability suggests one promising way to shrink aviation's footprint: converting municipal solid waste (MSW) — food scraps, paper and packaging — into sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).
The authors estimate that waste-derived SAF could provide approximately 62.5 billion liters per year, potentially reducing global aviation emissions by around 16%. Their lifecycle analysis indicates that fuels produced from MSW could lower emissions by roughly 80–90% compared with conventional jet kerosene, depending on technology choices and local conditions.
“There is a wealth of organic waste deserving our attention,” said Michael McElroy, an environmental studies professor at Harvard and a member of the research team.
The paper highlights two technical points. First, integrating green hydrogen into conversion pathways could remove additional carbon and improve overall emissions performance. Second, the core technical hurdle is the gasification step — transforming heterogeneous waste into syngas (a mix of hydrogen and carbon monoxide) — which requires improved efficiency, reliability and scale-up before large commercial deployment.
Why this matters
For cities struggling with overflowing landfills, waste-to-fuel processes offer a dual benefit: reducing disposal pressure and producing low-carbon fuel for hard-to-electrify sectors like aviation. The approach could complement other decarbonization routes rather than replace them entirely.
Context and caveats
Important practical challenges remain. Feedstock collection and sorting, local infrastructure, economic viability, and competition with recycling and composting are all factors that affect how much usable waste is truly available for fuel production. Lifecycle emissions also depend on plant design, energy sources used in processing, and regional waste management practices.
This research complements parallel advances in cleaner flight technologies: engineers at Chalmers University in Sweden have proposed hydrogen-powered aircraft concepts, and aviation company Eviation recently unveiled Alice, an all-electric commuter plane for short routes. Together, waste-derived SAF, hydrogen propulsion and electric aircraft form a portfolio of options to lower aviation's carbon footprint.
Bottom line: Converting municipal solid waste into sustainable aviation fuel shows strong emissions-reduction potential, but realizing that potential will require technological improvements — especially in gasification — plus supportive policy, investment and careful coordination with existing waste-management systems.