An aircraft boneyard or aircraft graveyard is a storage area for aircraft which are retired from service. Most aircraft at boneyards are either kept for storage continuing to receive some maintenance or parts of the aircraft are removed for reuse or resale and the aircraft are scrapped. Boneyard facilities are generally located in deserts such as those in the southwestern United States, since the dry conditions reduce corrosion and the hard ground does not need to be paved. In some cases, aircraft which were planned to be scrapped or were stored indefinitely without plans of ever returning to service were brought back into service, as the aviation market or the demands of military aviation changed or failed to develop as was anticipated.

Scrap consists of recyclable materials, usually metals, left over from product manufacturing and consumption, such as parts of vehicles, building supplies, and surplus materials. Unlike waste, scrap has monetary value, especially recovered metals, and non-metallic materials are also recovered for recycling. Once collected, the materials are sorted into types — typically metal scrap will be crushed, shredded, and sorted using mechanical processes.