Can Food Waste Fuel America's Skies? The Promise And Pitfalls Of Trash-To-JetA

FBO ground services technician refueling corporate aircraft with Jet A

By EVWorld.com Si Editorial Team

America throws out mountains of food every year - tens of millions of tons that mostly rot in landfills and leak climate-warming methane. Scientists have a counterintuitive proposition: turn that trash into jet fuel. In lab settings, food waste can be converted into a biocrude that is further upgraded to meet aviation specs. It is a compelling vision because it hits two problems at once - waste and emissions - with a single, scalable idea.

How much could it really supply?

Even in an optimistic scenario, food-waste jet fuel would cover a slice, not the whole pie. The U.S. burns roughly 50 to 55 million gallons of jet fuel per day. If the nation captured, processed, and upgraded the bulk of its food waste, the practical output might land in the single-digit billions of gallons annually - enough to supply a meaningful share but not a majority. That still matters. Aviation is hard to decarbonize, and any credible supply that can blend into existing engines and infrastructure is a strategic win. But it is not a silver bullet. The sky will need a portfolio.

The chemistry is promising - scaling is the real test

Processes like hydrothermal liquefaction can turn wet, heterogeneous food scraps into a pumpable biocrude. Refiners can then upgrade it to a jet-ready blendstock. On paper, the pathway fits the industry: drop-in molecules, familiar refinery equipment, and a waste feedstock that avoids food-versus-fuel concerns. In practice, the full chain is hard. You need reliable inputs, standardized preprocessing, continuous operations, and quality control tight enough for aviation?s unforgiving standards. Each link adds cost and risk.

Logistics will make or break it

Food waste is heavy, wet, and scattered across millions of kitchens and thousands of restaurants, grocers, and institutions. Collecting it at scale means new bins, routes, and transfer stations; contamination by plastics and metals can tank yields. The economics push facilities close to urban centers where waste density is highest, but permitting is tougher and land is expensive. Hauling wet waste long distances defeats both cost and carbon goals. To work, the system needs regional hubs that pair high-volume feedstock with local upgrading and pipeline or rail access to airports.

Regulation and certification are non-negotiable

Every new fuel pathway must pass ASTM certification to be used in commercial aviation. That means exhaustive testing for safety, performance, and compatibility, plus real-world trials and conservative blending limits during early deployment. Certification takes years, and each process variant requires its own approval. Airlines can and do fly on sustainable aviation fuel blends today, but scaling a new pathway from pilot to commercial volumes is a marathon, not a sprint.

The economics need policy tailwinds

Trash-to-jet will not beat fossil jet fuel on cost without help. Collection systems, preprocessing, conversion, and upgrading all add expense compared to pumping petroleum. Airlines operate on razor-thin margins, and fuel is their biggest variable cost. Adoption hinges on tax credits, carbon pricing, low-interest finance, and long-term offtake contracts that de-risk supply. Recent federal incentives for SAF are a start, but durable, bankable policy is the difference between scattered pilots and a true market.

What about the climate math?

Diversion from landfills can avoid methane emissions, yielding strong lifecycle benefits if logistics are efficient and conversion is powered by low-carbon energy. The catch is system design. Trucking heavy waste long distances, operating energy-intensive plants on fossil electricity, or high contamination rates can erode those gains. The right answer is regional, electrified, and clean-powered - a network that turns local waste into local fuel with minimal deadhead miles.

The bottom line is pragmatic optimism. Turning food waste into jet fuel will not replace petroleum overnight, but it can become a substantial contributor to sustainable aviation fuel supply within this decade if cities, waste haulers, refiners, and airlines align. The opportunity is less about hero chemistry and more about industrial plumbing: build dependable feedstock streams, certify the molecules, lock in long-term demand, and finance plants that can run year-round. America?s trash is not going away. The question is whether we can move it from landfill liabilities to runway-ready molecules without losing the plot on cost, carbon, or scale.

For aviation, incremental progress adds up. A few billion gallons of waste-derived SAF would not only cut emissions but also buy time for other pathways - used cooking oil, agricultural residues, synthetic fuels from clean hydrogen and captured CO2 - to mature. No single source will carry the load. But together, they can help America?s airlines fly cleaner while keeping the world connected.

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