U.S. Air Force Master Sgt. Michael Moore, 332d Expeditionary Logistics Readiness Squadron Individual Protective Equipment personnel, handles ballistic plates at an undisclosed location in Southwest Asia in late 2022. The armed services regularly ship the plates to testing facilities to ensure their structural integrity and continued effectiveness in body armor. When they are declared excess, Defense Logistics Agency Disposition Services has historically accepted them for demilitarization and disposal. Now, the agency and DoW are instituting processes for shipping excess plates directly to a recycling contract firm to reuse the valuable boron carbide inside.