[mturmon]

This press release, rewritten as a news article, seems like it comes from a parallel universe in which carriers are not trying to drive costs to zero.

I especially liked the comment from the VP that part of their plans for making the plane environmentally sound starts with recyclable components. As if recycling the plane is a major design consideration.

[pedalpete]

As a European company, I believe recycling has to be a major part of their development efforts.

They could easily be caught up in EU laws and regulations regarding recycling. Though the link below pertains to electronics, I believe there are similar laws for automobiles, so they could just be thinking ahead.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_Electrical_and_Electronic...

Further to that, recycling is good practice in something as resource intensive as an airplane. Recycling bits from lots of different phones is, I suspect, much more challenging than recycling large chunks from planes.