These include an arid desert climate, high elevation, low pollution levels and alkaline soils, all of which inhibit rust and erosion. The boneyard stores thousands of commercial planes. These range from aircraft that are beyond any state of repair to planes that will eventually be returned to active service, such as Qantas' fleet of Airbus A380s, which were returned to the airline after three years in storage.

Storage works out at around £6,100 ($8k) per aircraft, per month, so the costs to airlines can mount up considerably. In addition to planes manufactured by the likes of Boeing and Airbus, the boneyard stores a variety of aircraft including McDonnell Douglas and Lockheed Martin planes.

If you're keen to visit, the boneyard isn't actually open to the general public per se, but does put on monthly 'Plane Crazy Saturdays' during which enthusiasts can tour the now bulging facility and find out more about its activities. Admission is free.

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The boneyard has featured in a number of TV shows and movies, including the Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. While the base is out of bounds to the general public, the adjacent Pima Air & Space Museum is a fascinating place to learn about aircraft old and new.

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The Teruel facility stores and dismantles planes manufactured by Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier and other leading names in the global aviation industry. 

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The facility's leading customers are airlines based in the Asia-Pacific region and have included Fiji Airways and Singapore Airlines. During the coronavirus pandemic, Singapore Airlines stored six of its Airbus A380 super jumbo jets at the Australian facility, but some of these have since returned to service.

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The final death knell for the hub came in the 1940s when Bolivia's mining industry completely collapsed. The decimation of the industry hit Uyuni hard and its many trains were abandoned, where they remain to this day. 

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While the majority of the rolling stock in the Kraków graveyard is made up of EU07 electric trains, the boneyard also stores plenty of older locomotives, which date back decades, as well as several more modern trains. 

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The lack of vandalism is all the more surprising given the graveyard appears to be severely neglected. Nature has been left to take its course and overgrown greenery surrounds the out-of-service trains.

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A lucrative enterprise, Lewis charges adult visitors £15 ($20) to enter the scrapyard. But if they wish to take photographs of the yard's thousands of Instagram-friendly used cars, the entry fee rises to £23 ($30).

It's not hard to figure out why Old Car City is such a magnet for both amateur and professional photographers. The scrapyard is jam-packed with auto gems, some of which have been parked for so long, they have trees and shrubs growing through them. 

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The scrapyard stores thousands of old cars dating from as far back as the 1940s and is America's go-to yard for vintage car aficionados looking for elusive spare parts to use in their classic vehicles.

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Classic car enthusiasts who can't make it to the yard in person can shop for spare parts on the DVAP website. Although many of the vehicles are yet to be documented, staff put the most sought-after components online.

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The scrapyard is so renowned, it has even starred in its very own Discovery Channel reality show. Desert Car Kings, which ran on the channel for one season in 2011, followed the yard's employees as they went about their day-to-day business.

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However, the process isn't entirely environmentally friendly. Not by a long shot. Despite efforts in recent years to raise standards, the beach at Alang is severely polluted with all sorts of toxic nasties including asbestos, circuit boards and fuel that has leaked from the decommissioned ships.

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The global pause in cruising during COVID-19 accelerated the retirement and scrapping of many older and expensive-to-run ships. Although ships can take up to a year to dismantle, each vessel can fetch up to £3.4 billion ($4bn) in recycled material profits, so once-beloved ships line up at the docks to await their final fate.  

As a result of the pandemic, Pullmantur Cruises was also forced to decommission two other major vessels, the MV Horizon and MS Monarch (pictured). Mirroring the activity at the Alang Ship Breaking Yard, Aliağa's wreckers first salvage the ships' contents then dismantle the vessels, retaining the steel and metal scraps.

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These metal parts are recycled on site or sent to a smelter or furnace to be melted, then ultimately re-used. In addition to the huge breaking yards at Alang and Aliağa, cruise ships are broken down at scrapyards in the UK, Bangladesh, China, Pakistan and other locations around the world.

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