Auto Recycling Blog Moves

I have moved my Blog over to the Auto Recyclers of Canada website.

Thanks,

--

Steve Fletcher
ARC Managing Director

A World of Opportunities and Challenges

by Michael E. Wilson, ARA CEO in Recycling Today Magazine

As chief executive officer and part of the leadership of the Automotive Recyclers Association (ARA), it is an honor to assist our organization in its mission to be a vibrant international association that represents the interests of all of our worldwide members. In the past four years, I have been fortunate to visit such countries as Australia, Canada, Great Britain, Hungary, Malaysia, Switzerland and Mexico and to converse with leaders in the recycling community about the important global developments occurring in automotive recycling sector.

Established in 1943, the ARA represents an industry dedicated to the efficient removal and reuse of “green” automotive parts and the proper recycling of inoperable motor vehicles. ARA represents more than 4,500 auto recycling facilities in the United States and 14 other countries around the world. ARA members continue to provide consumers with quality, low-cost alternatives for vehicle replacement parts while preserving our environment for a “greener” tomorrow.

With the development of emerging countries around the world, the importance of and opportunities for the automotive recycling industry are growing exponentially. According to the auto industry researcher Ward’s, the global car population topped 1 billion in 2010. Stephen Lacey at Climate Progress cites a report from the International Transport Forum that estimates a global vehicle fleet of 2.5 billion in 2050.

The international market—that is the supply and demand for salvage cars throughout the world—presents opportunities that know few boundaries. However, this also presents significant challenges to ensure that untrained and unscrupulous individuals do not handle these vehicles improperly.

International Markets
In previous generations, buying salvage cars in the U.S. was managed more closely. A salvage dealer had to be physically present at the vehicle auction with a bid card in hand, and the bidding was against other licensed buyers in the region for the purpose of buying vehicles to supply area salvage yards. Since bidders were only able to bid on the vehicles being auctioned at that single location, it was most economical for bidders to be local or regional competitors.

Those parameters have disappeared. Today with the Internet, a salvage dealer can attend auctions anywhere, anytime—another opportunity that brings with it huge challenges, however, because virtually everyone else in the world can now compete against buyers of all types, regulated and nonregulated. The professional automotive recycler is competing for the same salvage vehicles with others who have a much different business model.

Complicating this already piecemeal approach is that the largest salvage auction pools also have set up departments to solicit and accommodate international bidders by providing brokerage and export services.

The Internet also, of course, has allowed for online interactive shopping sites, such as eBay, Craigslist and others. The convenience and supply of parts/vehicles offered through sites such as eBay is tempered by the fact that product warranties and regulated buyers/sellers are not guaranteed, at times leaving the consumer with a potentially unsafe part of questionable value.

ARA is working with eBay and others to ensure that vehicles and auto parts that are being sold have been appropriately registered in a federal database—another opportunity being pursued that evolved from a challenge.

We all know that the international market is big business. Profit is a strong motivator for companies that facilitate the sale of salvage-branded vehicles, whether the auto auctions or private companies buy directly from insurance companies, banks and dealers specifically for exporting.

High Demand
In the U.S, fleet operators and insurance companies incur more than 5 million “total loss” vehicles each year because of accidents and thefts. Salvage auctions remarketed more than 60 percent of the more than 5 million “total loss” vehicles in 2007. The growth in “total loss” declarations by insurance companies in the U.S. reflects vehicles equipped with costly options (air bags, xenon headlights and electronics) that push repair costs above the wholesale value of the vehicle.

According to estimated calculations based on public records provided by the larger auction companies, about 1 million of the 3.5 million cars salvaged each year, however, are exported outside of the United States. American salvage vehicles are usually very appealing because they tend to be between six and 10 years old. In many countries, this is considered a new car, and newer model, rebuilt salvaged vehicles can fetch quite a sum, especially those considered luxury models.

The fact that a vehicle’s salvage title branding does not stay with a car that is exported from the United States also is appealing to international buyers. Once a salvage vehicle enters another country, the U.S. title brands are not relevant, and the repair of such vehicles is rarely subject to inspection.

Further complicating the issue is that not all countries have the high repair standards that the United States has adopted, which provides buyers from less-regulated countries other opportunities for revenue on salvaged cars apart from parts. In most countries around the world, it is legal to repair such vehicles and inexpensive to do so in light of low labor costs. Once repaired, they sell the cars and, even factoring in the export fees and the inflated cost to purchase the salvage, repairers still make a profit.

Add to this the fact that the U.S. dollar has softened in recent years because our Federal Reserve has kept interest rates artificially low and we have had a slower-than-expected recovery in our jobs market. As a result, the U.S. salvage market is attracting a wider range of international buyers who can get more for their money than they can at home. That uptick in interest has strengthened salvage values.

Indeed, there are opportunities for profits to be made on American salvage cars internationally, but foreign governments should be concerned for the safety of the salvaged car consumer as well. It is this type of challenge that leads to a global opportunity to establish a worldwide standard, and one need only to look to what the ARA has already developed as a basis for action.

Certification Programs 
ARA, since its beginning, has adopted standards of practice for its members. These measures, which include best management practices for safety, environment and quality for recycled parts, provide recycling businesses with the ability to effectively compete in the marketplace while focusing on sustainability. These standards can affect the life of a motor vehicle; and, conversely, the absence of standards subjects the recycler, consumer and the environment to unfair, improper and even dangerous consequences.

Specifically, the Certified Automotive Recycling (CAR) Program was established in 1994 and produced a set of general business practices as well as environmental and safety standards that recyclers must follow. Another standard that the ARA offers is its Gold Seal Program, which is endorsed by the Automotive Service Association, the largest trade association representing the collision repair industry. This program was established to help maintain and enforce reputable, quality business practices throughout the automotive recycling industry. Gold Seal customer service goals are based on the highest professional and ethical business practices established and adhered to by “Best in Class” automotive recyclers.

Green Marketing 
ARA also is stepping up our efforts to help enhance the public’s perception of the industry by developing a wide range of marketing tools to brand the automotive recycling industry as a professional organization selling green, economical and safe recycled parts.

The new marketing initiatives will enable ARA member companies to link to the consumer information website, www.greenrecycledparts.com, and will provide access to professionally produced radio spots, online ads, print ads and video commercials—all fully customizable for each automotive recycler to brand its facility. Furthermore, this member marketing package will include the use of the newly trademarked “Green Recycled Parts®” logo on all automotive recycling facility materials.

The consumer information site, www.greenrecycledparts.com, noted above will help to explain the automotive recycling industry to consumers, offering educational information and connecting consumers with our members, who sell quality recycled automotive parts. We want to educate consumers about all the good that we do.

We know these ever increasing numbers of vehicles on the streets and highways around the globe will at some point face end-of-life processing decisions. It is important that standards—demanding specific environmental and economical behaviors—be adopted worldwide so that the automotive recycling industry can ensure that recycled auto parts are indeed safe and retain their utmost value. It is only when this happens that the automotive recycling industry can take its rightful place among the most successful businesses across the globe.

The author is CEO of the Automotive Recyclers Association, Manassas, Va. He can be contacted at michael@a-r-a.org

Vehicle recycling: There's money in scrap cars

Recycling and reusing turns garbage into gold

Every year in Canada, some 1.2 million vehicles reach the end of their useful lives.

Some have been crashed or damaged beyond repair, while others are simply old and worn out, or not worth repairing anymore. In the past, these cars and trucks were mostly just considered scrap. Today, they’re a valuable commodity that’s ripe for recycling.

So what's possible?
There is value in their metal, of course, but recyclers will also be going after their fluids, batteries, tires and parts, whether for reuse or refurbishment, or to ensure that their disposal is as environmentally friendly as possible.

“On an average vehicle, you’ll get 75 per cent recycled as metal,” says Steve Fletcher, managing director of the Automotive Recyclers of Canada. “Once you factor in the parts we’ve taken out, up to 83 per cent of the vehicle can be recycled.”

Once a vehicle comes into the recycler’s facility, the first thing is to determine if any parts can be directly reused. These include engines and transmissions, as well as smaller parts such as alternators, mirrors, and headlight and taillight assemblies, and even body panels if they’re still in good shape. Once they’re off, it’s time to “depollute” the vehicle, as Fletcher says.

Depollute?
That means removing all the fluids, which can total between 20 and 40 litres. Gasoline generally stays at the yard, where it fuels the vehicles needed to run the recycler’s operation.

Any gas that’s too stale for use is mixed in with the used oil collected from cars, which is sold to recyclers for six to eight cents a litre. Any of this oil that can’t be reprocessed into a new product is burned in furnaces for asphalt manufacture and other industries.

Antifreeze and windshield washer fluid is also reused whenever possible, and any that can’t is sent for waste treatment and disposal, along with waste transmission and brake fluid.

The battery is worth four to five dollars as a core for refurbishment. Hazardous materials must be removed for proper disposal, including lead wheel weights, and on some vehicles, a mercury switch.

These switches used the dangerous metallic element to determine the hood’s position, turning on the under-hood light when activated. They were phased out by 2003, but many older cars still contain them, and they must be sent for decommission.

Freon in the air conditioning system also presents a problem, as it needs to be recovered using special equipment that prevents any from escaping into the air when the a/c is being drained. “It’s reused on-site, or it’s sold to someone who’s licensed to handle it for reuse,” Fletcher says. “Otherwise, we have to pay $500 a cylinder for it to be chemically treated (for safe disposal).”

End of life in your neighbourhood
All provinces have tire stewardship programs in force, and like end-of-life cars, worn tires have become a valuable commodity, recycled into a wide variety of new products such as roofing, flooring, playground surfaces, livestock mats and car parts.

Most jurisdictions are actively diverting them from use as tire-derived fuel, where they’re burned to power cement factories, a more common use in the past. Auto recyclers also remove and sell valuable metals in the car, such as copper from the radiator, or aluminum from the wheels or engine.

What’s left is known as the “hulk”—the body, and if they weren’t good enough to be reused, the seats, dash and windows. The hulk is flattened in a giant press, mainly to make it easier to ship to its final destination.

That’s the shredder, which pulverizes it into pieces about the size of your fist. The metal is separated using magnets or compressed air. “What’s remaining is called shredder residue,” Fletcher says. “It’s comingled plastic foam, carpet and glass, things that are fairly inert.”

This goes to a landfill, where it may perform one final function: spread over garbage, it helps to reduce odours and pest infestation.

Worst case scenario?
Of course, all of that is ideally what will happen to your old vehicle. In reality, there’s “no real licensing system virtually anywhere in Canada, and nobody knows who’s processing vehicles,” Fletcher says. “Poor recyclers will just flatten (the car), letting the fluid and Freon contaminate the shredder residue (and) polluting the air and water.”

So why go to all the trouble?

The bottom line is that it’s worth it. “Just looking at the metal, you should probably see $500 to $600 for a flattened hulk,” Fletcher says, adding that getting the vehicle to that point takes about $100 in time, effort and reasonable overhead.

“If you recycle a ton of electronics, you might get $200, but it’s $800 to do it. They all have negative value when you throw in proper handling, but a car has positive value.

"It’s an asset, and recyclers are good at figuring out how to extract value all along the chain.”

Autos Sympatico.ca by Jil McIntosh

Inside CAREC: The professional auto recycler's new code of practice

The Automotive Recyclers of Canada (ARC) have developed a new checklist for Canadian auto recyclers. CAREC, the Canadian Auto Recyclers’ Environmental Code, sets a national standard for environmental safety and best practice, says Managing Director of ARC Steve Fletcher.

The code was developed in the wake of the vehicle-recycling program, Retire Your Ride. Inspired by the National Code of Practice for Automotive Recyclers (CoP). CAREC expanded the scope of the Code to include all end-of-life vehicles—not solely models 1995 and older—and elaborated on incentives for participating recyclers.

The purpose of CAREC is twofold, Fletcher says. The first is as a guide for Canadian recyclers to better understand the industry’s laws and regulations.

The 33-page document summarizes everything from Federal and Provincial legislation to a breakdown of the proper handling of hazardous materials.

“Many of the rules and regulations and acts aren’t written with us in mind, they’re written for people in the automotive service sector or just general businesses. But CAREC takes the laws and acts and puts them into plain language for recyclers,” he said, adding that the code is structured to parallel how a car moves through recyclers’ facilities. “It becomes an operational guide for the recycler to be proactive in what they’re doing.”

The second component of CAREC involves a series of third-party audits, where every participating facility has to score 75 percent or higher in order to retain both provincial and national memberships. The auditors, currently hired by ARC, use CAREC as a rubric.

“CAREC helps to educate the recycler on what the auditor is looking for – what’s the minimum practice, what’s best practice – and it allows them to do the checklist themselves,” said Fletcher. “The philosophy behind it is that there’s a continual improvement, you’re never a perfect recycler, you always have something to work on… there’s always a better way to do it, a faster way to do it, a cheaper way to do it.

“We’re finding now that people are executing their pollution prevention plans and they’re saying ‘When can I get audited again because I want to make sure I’m going in the right direction and I want to do some more things.’ So it’s really continual improvement.”

For the time being, ARC will continue to develop CAREC by consulting with various provincial associations as to “what is reasonable, what is cost effective and what will continue to drive good behaviour,” said Fletcher. “We think it’s going to be an every-three-year audit, but no firm decisions have been made.”

CAREC was first developed by both ARC and Summerhill Impact, the producers of Retire Your Ride. However, ARC has since taken over the rights and oversight to the project.

What has been determined, according to Fletcher, is that CAREC is around to stay. He says they doubt it will be replaced. Ideally, they want it to continue to grow.   

“An ideal end to it is that government recognizes it as the standard and begins to implement it in regulation. Right now only ARC members are CAREC audited, so we’re 420 out of a 1,000 recyclers out there. And like any business, we need a level playing field,” he said.

By Caitlin Choi, Collision Repair Magazine

Groups target rules for auto recycling

Auto makers and recyclers are pushing provincial governments to adopt tough new recycling rules for vehicles that they say will lead to improved recycling rates, less environmental damage and even reduce auto-related crimes.

Industry groups admit they are acting out of pure self-interest: They fear that if they don’t propose their own recycling regime, that governments will impose one on them that is dysfunctional, expensive and disruptive.

“We want to avoid programs that are costly, inefficient, that have great administrative burden with less environmental impact,” said Mark Nantais, president of the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers’ Association, which represents U.S.-based auto makers, one of a trio of industry associations behind the proposal. “We shouldn’t be forced into an arrangement that hasn’t been shown to work. We believe we have a better approach.” (The Association of International Automobile Manufacturers of Canada has also joined in the effort.)

Their concern isn’t without reason: Ontario’s recycling regimes for hazardous household waste and electronics have been derided by industry and municipalities alike as boondoggles. Meanwhile, provincial environment ministers have proposed adding similar “extended producer responsibility” programs to include mercury switches, oil filters and other car parts. Under such plans, manufacturers would be be responsible for bearing the costs of a product through to its demise.

That alarmed both auto makers and recyclers. Manufacturers worried that a collection of piecemeal programs would be expensive and unwieldy, forcing them to buy wrecks off the open market and pass on hundreds of dollars of extra costs to consumers, as some European countries have done. Recyclers worried that auto makers will move onto their turf.

At issue is the fact that the recycling industry is unregulated. While about 420 recyclers belong to industry group Automotive Recyclers of Canada (ARC) – one of the plan’s proponents – and comply by common environmental standards, about two-thirds of the 1.2 million vehicles that come off the road each year are handled by operators who don’t.

“My competition used to be eight to 10 other recyclers in the area,” said Wally Dingman, co-owner of Caughill Auto Wreckers Ltd., a 65-year-old car recycling firm in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont. “We’ve always done proper fluid drainage and things you should be doing. Now [due to high scrap metal prices] we have body shops, tow truck operators, and guys with a truck with no overhead, no liability insurance, who don’t pay into workers’ compensation and aren’t doing any of the environmental [work] I do. We’re put at a competitive disadvantage.”

As a result, many recyclers haphazardly strip or crush vehicles, releasing hazardous materials into the environment, and don’t resell as much of the vehicle’s parts as they could, they say. Since vehicles aren’t tracked by governments to the very end, unscrupulous wreckers can lift their identifying plates and sell them to illicit buyers to give new identities to stolen cars. “Anybody can act as an auto recycler, whether or not they know what they’re doing, and that often leads to the lowest common denominator,” said Steve Fletcher, ARC’s managing director.

Under the industry proposal, all auto recyclers in a province would need to be licensed, operate to strict environmental standards and report vehicle information numbers as vehicles are scrapped. They would be overseen by an independent body composed of industry, consumer and other government-appointed representatives mandated by the province to enforce the rules. The costs would be borne by recyclers, not taxpayers or buyers, and lead to recycling rates of up to 83 per cent of the vehicles’ weight from about 76 per cent now. The added revenues from recycling more of the vehicle would help to offset the costs of the program, forgoing the need to pass on extra fees to customers, the proponents say.

Their hope is to convince Ontario to adopt its proposal, setting the precedent for others to follow. So far, Ontario’s Environment Minister, Jim Bradley has shown initial support, establishing a working group to study the plan over the summer. “It’s always good when you see an industry that identifies the challenge out there and wants to find a solution to it,” he said.

Sean Silcoff, Kim Mackrael, The Globe and Mail

What Happens to Your Old Car

CTV visits Sonshine Auto Parts

There's no question that the public perception of automotive recycling has changed for the better in recent years, due in no small part to the efforts of association members. Positive media exposure has helped tip the scales of public opinion in favour of progressive and environmentally concious automotive recyclers.

Another example hit the airwaves yesterday, when the CTV affiliate in Ottawa visited Sonshine Auto Parts for three remote segments. Denis Desjarding and Don Laniel of Sonshine Auto Parts did a great job in helping to explain and promote the automotive recycling industry. You can check out the segments below!

CAA survey highlights public misconceptions on vehicle recycling

A recent survey shows the majority of the general public agrees there should be regulations in place to dispose of cars safely and properly.

The survey was conducted by Harris/Decima on behalf of the Canadian Automobile Association. CAA conducts polling with its nine member clubs across Canada and with non-members on a number of topics bi-annually. Both members and non-members are surveyed to ensure that numbers are representative of the general public. Over 5,000 people were surveyed regarding undriveable vehicles and vehicle disposal.

“The research was undertaken in an attempt to put numbers to what we already figured was public perception. Most people think there is legislation around vehicle recycling,” said Teresa Di Felice, Director of Government & Community Relations for CAA South Central Ontario (CAA SCO). With 1.8 million members, South Central Ontario is the largest CAA club in Canada. Di Felice advised that CAA uses this data to help with positions on policy making. Di Felice joined with OARA back in July of 2011 to put vehicle recycling on the radar of government.

Steve Fletcher, Executive Director of OARA said, “These results help us show that the issue resonates with the public. In all my years in the industry I have never seen anything like this data. It's always helpful to have data to back up what we have been saying for years."

The survey asked what people do with their cars when they are no longer driveable. The majority either trades it in, or has never disposed of a vehicle before. The minority drops it off at an auto recycling facility or scrap yard.

“We have a pretty strong Autogreen environmental program,” says Di Felice. The Autogreen environmental program is a CAA SCO initiative to help members understand the impact their cars have on the environment and to encourage its members and motorists in general to lessen that impact. However, the public knows very little about end-of-life vehicles and their impact on the environment.

“We wanted to take a cradle to grave approach on vehicle ownership and we used the survey as a tool to ask members what they know,” says Di Felice. “With Autogreen and OARA it makes a lot of sense. There are things people can do to lessen the impact on the environment. People think end of life vehicles are taken care of properly. This survey helped us cement our position on policy regarding vehicle disposal.”

“1 out of 4 drivers in Ontario is a CAA member. And the survey came back with results showing what the general public understands about end of life vehicles. The data ended up validating that there is a gap in what drivers expect happens to their old cars and what actually happens,” says Fletcher.

OARA is leading a coalition working towards a standards-based licensing scheme for the auto recycling industry. Other members include CAA, the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers Association and the Association of International Auto Manufacturers of Canada. The group has met with senior government officials.

By Amanda Skopec, Collision Repair Magazine

Strict Environmental Code is the New Gold Standard for the Auto Recyclers of Canada Members

Whether by accident or through years of dutiful service, your vehicle has finally reached the end of the road. Few of us realize that deciding where to take it is a vitally important environmental decision. The truth is, not everyone handles vehicles the way they should and when that happens, the environmental impact can be disastrous. A program called The Canadian Auto Recyclers’ Environmental Code (CAREC) aims to make sure you’re dealing with one of the “good guys”.

Steve Fletcher, Managing Director of ARC, explained the evolution of the program. “This came out of Environment Canada's National Code of Practice for Automotive Recyclers, developed to support the Retire Your Ride scrappage program. It laid out some pretty stringent compliance requirements for a recycling operation to properly process a vehicle. CAREC goes beyond the structure of the original program and has become an invaluable resource for automotive recyclers in the environmentally sound management of end-of-life vehicles.”

The new program has three goals:

• To convey the legal and mandatory requirements before, during, and after the recycling process and promote best management practices within the industry;

• To promote pollution prevention and the vehicle recovery industry to reduce the ecological impact of the automotive sector; and

• To ensure that there is a consistent set of practices that are aligned with federal, provincial, and municipal regulations, as well as with product and industry stewardship programs.

For an auto recycler to be certified to the code, they must pass an independent audit which objectively measures both their facilities and the processes they use against a standardized protocol. ARC has made it a condition of membership for all of its Direct Members to maintain their certification.

So, as a vehicle owner, why should you care whether or not a recycler is certified? Fletcher explains. “Unfortunately, not everybody processes end-of-life vehicles the way ARC members do. There are some operators who buy cars just to crush them and sell them for the value of the metal. They leave toxic fluids and heavy metals to escape into the soil and groundwater. They don’t recycle usable parts and have no regard to the damage they’re doing to the environment. At face value it’s almost impossible for the average vehicle owner to figure out who the responsible recyclers are and who they should avoid at all costs. When they deal with an ARC member, they know that operator has been thoroughly checked out.”

Auto Tech: Automobile recycling

We are all excited when a new shiny vehicle appears in our driveway, and many are interested in how cars and trucks are built and perform. It’s a different story when a vehicle is no longer roadworthy, and that old hulk is traded in, sold or hauled away. We really don’t care, as long as it disappears to somewhere, but we should: there were over twelve million new vehicles sold last year in North America. This is down from a record 17 million a few years earlier, but in the long run, these vehicles will serve their useful purpose and have to be disposed of. Unlike in the past, where old vehicles were left to sit and rust, today these vehicles still have value and that is where automobile recyclers come into play.

We used to call them wrecking yards or salvage yards. Now they are referred to as automotive recyclers, and that is an accurate description of what they do. When a vehicle enters their workplace, it is evaluated and major serviceable parts are removed from the vehicle for resale. It may be an engine, transmission or even body parts, depending on the demand of the marketplace for used parts. Think of this as the ultimate in green environmental consciousness: instead of using new materials and the cost of producing and shipping a new part, a good serviceable used part is put back on the road again.

After the good parts are used, the rest of the vehicle still has value. Bodies are crushed, shredded and sorted into different materials. Currently, over 75% of an automobile is easily recyclable, and in Europe and Japan, they are trying to regulate it so 95% can be recycled. Seventy per cent of a modern vehicle’s weight is made up of steel and cast iron, and more than 40 per cent of all new steel in North America comes from this recycled metal. Lighter metals such as aluminum, copper, zinc and magnesium make up a much smaller percentage of a vehicle’s total weight but are still a significant volume. It is much cheaper to recycle aluminum than it is to mine the ore and produce new aluminum. Not only is it environmentally sound, recycling it takes a lot less electrical energy.

Currently, about 24% of the vehicle ends up as automotive shredder residue (ASR), which includes materials such as plastics, adhesives, rubber, glass, dirt and foam. Current automotive direction is to include more plastics in vehicles to reduce weight and increase fuel economy, and auto manufacturers are helping the recycling process by marking plastic parts with the type of material they are made of so they can be sorted easier. Other parts, such as rubber, can be separated out and reused in a different form. For example, Ford is making engine gaskets out of shredded tires for several of its vehicles.

Other materials, such as glues, resins and foams may not be as easily recyclable but they can be used as fuel sources to help power recycling facilities and research is ongoing to determine how to best utilize these and other materials.

Looking at new vehicles, manufacturers are increasingly finding new ways of incorporating recycled materials into their vehicles. Bamboo, a quic- growing grass, is used by several as reinforcement in moulded underbody panels. This reduces the amount of petroleum needed to manufacture plastics. Recently, I saw how Ford’s new Focus Electric car will have seat material manufactured from recycled plastic water bottles. Not only was this a good use of a product often sent to the landfill, the seat material looked great and felt very luxurious. You would never guess it was derived from a plastic bottle!

Other Ford recycling initiatives include valve covers on the Fusion, Escape, Mustang and F150 made of 100 per cent recycled carpet. The Ecolon nylon resin made from the carpets results in a reduction of more than 430,000 gallons of oil used, not to mention the carpet that doesn’t go to the land fill. Another example is the 2012 Focus, which will have carpet and sound deadening material manufactured from used clothing.

These examples are from one manufacturer. The others are using recycled materials too, to both lower production costs and protect our environment. There is a social consciousness in the automotive industry, and recycling is one part of it.

By Jim Kerr
Autos.ca

Lecavalier Vehicle Disassembly

Stop motion video demonstrating complete vehicle dismantling at Lecavalier Auto Parts.

Rick Mercer Report at Carcone's Auto Recycling

This isn't exactly how it happens every day - it is a comedy show after all - but it was fun to hang with Rick for the day.

Will the recession total your car?

The economy has dented your car's value, at least in the eyes of insurers. Here's why, despite fewer serious wrecks, more cars are being declared a total loss.

The roads are safer today than ever. For several reasons -- older drivers, better cars, graduated licensing for teens -- fatal accidents in the U.S. have been falling for years. In fact, the government reported this month that highway fatalities had fallen to their lowest level since 1949.

Yet we are totaling far more cars.

In 2000, about 9% of the cars appraised for repairs were judged totaled, says car insurance claims analyst CCC Information Services. In 2010, that number rose to 14%.

We're not having more wrecks. And we're not having worse wrecks.

We're having a recession.

How much is my used car worth?
"Totaled" to the average driver means a wreck with a "holy cow" amount of damage. But "totaled" to your car insurance company means simply that repairs to the car don't make financial sense. That decision hinges on the car's value, its age and the repair costs. The Great Recession has done a number on all three.

Why we're buying and insuring older cars
It all started with a recent, astronomical run-up in the price of used cars. In 2008, as the recession took hold, new-car sales plunged. Would-be buyers feared for their jobs and hung on to their old cars. Tighter credit meant many who wanted to take the plunge couldn't. And manufacturers could no longer raise the money needed to underwrite subsidized leases and rebates.

Here's what new-car sales looked like over the past five years, according to Automotive News:

16 million in 2007.
13 million in 2008.
10 million in 2009.
11.6 million in 2010.
12.2 million (estimated) this year.

The auto market is a complicated ecosystem. "About 60% of all new-vehicle sales result in a trade-in," says Susanna Gotsch, the director and industry analyst at CCC Information Services.

Since the sales meltdown, the pool of like-new used cars has shrunk. Prices for those cream puffs have risen, pushing some buyers toward models with a few more miles. Those older cars now are selling at a premium, with sticker shock rippling all the way down to clunkers that can be bought without credit.

Last year alone, the Bureau of Labor Statistics says, the price of used cars rose 12.7%.

Cars are older, smaller -- but not cheaper to repair
As people keep their old cars longer and feel less inclined to buy new ones, the average age of autos on the road has risen by more than two years, from 8.5 years old in 1995 to 10.7 years old today, says Gotsch.

The cars are smaller as well. With the sudden rise of fuel prices in 2008 (and Cash for Clunkers removing 700,000 gas guzzlers from the roads), smaller, lighter, more fuel-efficient vehicles gained market share. Today, the roads carry a growing proportion of small vehicles that suffer more extensive damage in a wreck.

The impact of a crash pushes destruction farther back through a small car, involving a larger proportion of the body, says insurance analyst Greg Horn of Mitchell International. "The bottom line is that the smaller the car, the more likely it is to be totaled," says Horn.

With roads full of older, more vulnerable cars that still use expensive-to-repair technology such as air bags, the tipping point at which a car is declared a total loss happens at lower and lower values, the experts say. If used cars weren't fetching such high prices, the problem would be even worse.

"We have seen it go from upwards of 12% with some (insurance) carriers to, say, upward of 20% of the vehicles have been totaled," says Gotsch.

The math behind your totaled car
To a stranger or an insurance company, your beloved, ultraclean 10-year-old car isn't worth much. You're probably wondering whether to keep collision and comprehensive coverage on your car insurance policy.

But say you did. Your 2002 Nissan Altima in "good" condition is worth about $3,500 in trade, according to Kelley Blue Book. And say you absent-mindedly connect with a parking-lot light pole, cracking the bumper and headlight and wrinkling the hood.

The average claim last year on cars older than seven years was $1,913, CCCIS says. Let's use that number as your damage claim. If you have rental-car reimbursement coverage, your adjuster will add an estimate for that to the total. Then he looks at what kind of salvage value the car has if sold to a parts yard.

If the total for repairs -- plus rental, any storage fees and salvage value -- is more than the pre-crash value of the car, he'll probably take title to the car and write you a check.

If the estimate of repairs exceeds your state's threshold, he'll write you a check. About half the states set a threshold, ranging from Iowa's 50% of actual cash value to Texas' 100%.

If the car simply won't be safe, he'll write you a check.

CCCIS says one in four wrecked vehicles more than 7 years old winds up a total loss.

from MSN Money

Canadian study shows where old cars go in the afterlife

Neil Young once speculated on the fate of his beloved old 1948 Buick Roadmaster in the hippie-era auto elegy Long May You Run, suggesting hopefully: "Maybe the Beach Boys have got you now."

Turns out that may be true. But rather than "gettin' to the surf on time," a University of Windsor engineering professor says it's more likely the old hearse is keeping Brian Wilson's beer cold as part of his fridge.

Susan Sawyer-Beaulieu, a post-doctoral researcher in civil and environmental engineering, has spent eight years studying what happens to "end-of-life" vehicles when they are taken off the road and has determined most are stripped, shredded, sorted and resold as parts of other consumer products from appliances to lawn mowers.

"It mostly ends up in other products," she said. "Wherever steel is used in manufacturing some portion of that comes from end-of-life vehicles. Could be in appliances, construction material, could even end up in another car."

That, she said, is certainly the case when vehicles are harvested by scrap yards and auto recyclers and all the still useful components, like starters or steering columns, are stripped out, salvaged, refurbished and sold as replacement parts for other vehicles.

But Sawyer-Beaulieu's research is simply not to satisfy the curiosity of anyone who wondered, "whatever happened to old Betsy?" It has a more practical application too.

With funding provided in part from the Auto21 network and the Ontario Automotive Recyclers Association, Sawyer-Beaulieu has been compiling a meticulous assessment of what goes into an auto-dismantling facility, what gets recycled and reused and what gets shredded and ends up in a landfill.

Large automotive dismantlers can process as many as 17,000 vehicles a year. Every year 13 million vehicles reach their "end of life."

She has discovered that 80 per cent of the vehicle is recycled and reused in some way but 20 per cent still ends up in landfill. As much as 12 per cent of reusable parts are recovered even before the remaining hulks are shipped off to the shredder for metals recovery.

The goal, she said, is to find ways to recover even more of the leftovers and to cut back as much as possible on that 20 per cent still going to the landfill. Aside from the obvious environmental concerns, she said that eliminating waste also saves the industry money from tipping fees and guards them from that day when governments ban the dumping of automotive materials at landfills, as in Europe.

It is also her hope that auto jobs could be created if there is increased emphasis on recovering, reusing and recycling parts and materials. The research could be used to demonstrate there is a market for more of the materials used in automotive manufacturing and that salvaging and recycling it makes good business sense.

So what kinds of materials can be found in an end-of-life car? Steel, other ferrous and non-ferrous metals, foam, plastics, glass, residual oils and fluids, fabrics, rubber. Once those components have been separated, the remaining hulk is send to a shredder and chopped into fist-sized pieces.

"In Europe it's legislated how much must be recovered," said Sawyer-Beaulieu. "In Canada it's still a market-driven system. The industry doesn't want to be legislated because it could affect the way they do business. My research is to see how they can recover more to prevent that from being sent to landfills."

She gave the example of automotive seating assemblies. Currently, once anything usable has been stripped out, the seats are simply sent along to the shredder. She said "it would be nice" to see what further use can be made of the seats.

As vehicles become more computerized, she said, ways should be found to fully recover the electronics and circuit boards.

And what of those parts that can be salvaged whole? Sawyer Beaulieu's research shows they end up on the market as reconditioned auto parts, offered as replacements to consumers looking for inexpensive repairs.

Often the insurance industry suggests the use of these refurbished parts to clients for use in cars damaged in collisions as a way to save on repair bills. She said that newer cars, even those involved in major collisions, are valued more in the industry than even well preserved cars 15 years or older because their components are out of date.

The exception, she said, is with older vehicles that are considered classics or collectibles. Those parts are always in demand among enthusiasts hoping to stockpile replacement parts for reclamation projects.

So, perhaps there may be someone out there, maybe even a surfer girl, still saving a steering column, tail light assembly or engine part from Neil Young's old Buick, even though 90 per cent of it has been shredded. Long may you run.

By Don Lajoie, Postmedia News October 17, 2011 The Vancouver Sun

A National Approach to the Environmental Management of End-of-life Vehicles in Canada

The Automotive Recyclers of Canada is the national voice of the vehicle recycling industry representing, through its provincial affiliates, approximately 400 end-of-live vehicle (ELV) recyclers and dismantlers throughout Canada.

ELV processing represents one of the largest recycling sectors in Canada with about 1.2 million retired recycled each year. With a 94% ELV recovery and return rate, ELV waste diversion rates are higher than those for most provincial waste diversion programs. While ELV processors are subject to a number of provincial and federal requirements, ELV management practices are highly variable. The practice of processing ELVs throughout the country is not subject to consistent or comprehensive regulated standards. The lack of common processing standards for ELVs is significant. While used parts and scrap metal values are driving high recycling rates, ELVs also include a number of substances of concerns that incur costs when properly removed. It is common for many ELVs processors to reduce costs by ignoring environmental standards with respect to these materials. This creates an uneven playing field in the sector. While a number of vehicle recyclers operate to high environmental standards, with attendant high rates of reuse, recycling and minimal environmental discharges, the majority operate to no standard at all.

Increasingly this sector is becoming subject to a number of government waste management requirements. Different provincial and federal waste management initiatives create obligations with respect to how vehicles and vehicle components are managed. British Columbia has a requirement for ELV processors to establish waste management plans. Ontario has discussed designating ELVs for waste diversion in its mid-term plans. Quebec is expanding its extended producer responsibility (EPR) programs and will likely consider adding ELVs. The federal government has proposed implementing EPR rules related to the management of ozone depleting substances (ODS) including how those substances in vehicles are managed.

To date government initiatives to address vehicle components through waste diversion programs have not effectively addressed the serious environmental problems associated with ELV processing. The creation of EPR type waste management obligations with respect to ELVs, in the absence of a common and enforceable environmental standard for ELV processing, is likely to be counterproductive.

With respect to vehicle manufacturers, a national sector is threatened with a patchwork of various waste management requirements and obligations that are unlikely to generate actual improvements in ELV recycling. With respect to automotive recyclers, responsible businesses may be burdened with additional obligations, while their competitors continue to operate outside of provincial and federal waste management programs.

For the above reasons, the Automotive Recyclers of Canada (ARC) believes that it is timely to consider a national standard with respect to ELV processing. One of the core objectives of such an approach is to implement and enforce a common environmental processing standard for ELVs. This would address the single most significant problem associated with ELV recycling in Canada today. In Ontario, where the base of Canada's automotive manufacturing sector operates, the Ontario Automotive Recyclers Association (OARA), an ARC affiliate, has been working in collaboration with the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturer’s Association (CVMA) to create a licensing regime for vehicle recyclers in Ontario. The CVMA and ARC believe that the core elements of that proposal represent objectives that are readily achievable throughout Canada.

These include:

1) Codifying the National Code of Practice for Automotive Recyclers developed under the National Vehicle Scrappage Program (“Retire your Ride”) in provincially set regulation;
2) Licensing or registering businesses engaged in ELV processing to ensure sector-wide compliance with that common environmental processing standard; and
3) Auditing and monitoring processors and reporting annually on ELV recycling activity;

While the cross jurisdictional nature of environmental policy raises issues related to a national conception of ELV processing, both the ARC and CVMA believe that coordinating government policy in this area is an essential component to enhancing vehicle manufacturing competitiveness and generating positive environmental outcomes with respect to ELV waste management.

To download the discussion paper - A National Approach to the Environmental Management of End-of-life Vehicles in Canada

Rules badly needed for neglected auto recycling

Will the fate of defunct cars influence your vote in the Oct. 6 Ontario election?

What! You haven’t even thought about it? Perhaps you should.

After all, an estimated 550,000 vehicles are scrapped here every year. The business generally goes unnoticed.

Its problems would be relatively easy to fix, says the Ontario Automotive Recyclers Association, which represents one-third of Ontario’s car scrappers and wants whatever party that wins the election to commit to cleaning up this neglected industry.

Scrappers can make up to $300 per vehicle selling the useful parts or the steel, aluminum and other metals the junkers contain. That’s why 94 per cent are recycled.

Each car also contains, on average, 40 litres of gasoline, oil, transmission fluid, antifreeze and other liquids, as well as mercury, lead and other materials — most of them toxic. Some can also be reused or recycled; others must be disposed of. But all must be handled carefully.

When “end of life vehicles,” or ELVs, are processed well, the association says, 83 per cent of each vehicle, by weight, is reused or recycled.

The association’s 130 member companies must follow a code devised by a national group, the Automotive Recyclers of Canada, which was based on Environment Canada’s rules for the old Retire Your Ride scrappage program. It requires the nasty stuff to be drained or removed and handled like the hazardous waste it is, before the rest of the car is crushed and shredded. But association membership is voluntary, and the province’s 370 or so non-members are free to ignore it. While some treat the wastes properly, others “cut corners” and aren’t often caught.

The province doesn’t keep track of ELVs and exempts scrappers from the Environmental Protection Act provision that requires a Certificate of Approval for waste-disposal sites.

As for other provincial and federal anti-pollution rules, “some aspects of ELV handling are not regulated at all and where regulations do exist, enforcement is lacking,” the association says.

The result: Toxic materials become pollutants rather than resources. They soak into the ground or get emitted into the air. Some poison underground water, or lakes and rivers; others damage the earth’s protective high-level ozone layer or can cause respiratory diseases or cancer in humans.

“The release of 15 million litres of substances of concern in a single incident would likely generate headlines across the province,” the association says. “However, many small, daily releases . . . are happening across Ontario and this can be just as damaging to the environment.”

The group’s solution — supported by domestic and offshore carmakers — is a non-profit body to oversee all recyclers, who would be bound by the national code. Participation would be mandatory, and the companies, not carmakers or consumers, would pay — perhaps $10 per car — for the licensing and enforcement it would require.

Similar systems work well in parts of Europe. British Columbia has a flawed version: The government is responsible for enforcement and won’t spend enough to do that job.

Here, politics intervene.

The Conservatives won’t touch the idea because it appears to clash with their mantra of cutting taxes and red tape and their criticism of the government’s Eco-Fees — even though the association’s scheme is a business-oriented polar opposite of that botched program. The Liberals have said positive things about the plan but won’t set themselves up for attack on any policy that hints of regulation. The New Democrats are aligned with the United Auto Workers which, to protect union jobs, wants the carmakers made responsible for recycling.

But this is a good, simple idea that, as the association notes, is also a first step toward responsible, efficient battery recycling.

It deserves better.

Peter Gorrie for the Toronto Star

There is no green car without green recycling - but where's the profit?

Fancy Batteries in Electric Cars Pose Recycling Challenges
With fleets of electric cars starting to hit the roads, the next big mother lode for salvage companies is expected to be the expensive batteries that power them.

Yet even as automakers vaunt the ways these cars can benefit the environment, they are divided over how best to handle the refuse: recycle or repurpose.

That is worrying some companies involved in ''urban mining'' - a voguish term that refers to extracting valuable metals from all kinds of discarded electronics. They have already begun spending money to build an infrastructure to handle the flood of partly depleted battery packs that are expected to enter the waste stream; Frost & Sullivan, a consulting firm, puts the number at about 500,000 a year by the early 2020s.

''There is no green car without green recycling,'' said Ghislain Van Damme, a manager at Umicore, a company based in Hoboken that is one of the world's largest recyclers of precious and specialty metals from electronic waste.

Companies that fail to plan for recycling face ''brand damage'' at the very least, he said, as well as potential fines and legal action if the batteries end up being illegally incinerated or dumped in landfills. In many cases, automakers will be responsible for final disposal of the batteries - even if they did not actually manufacture them - because of stricter laws governing recycling, especially in Europe.

Any sense of urgency in developing recycling capacity has been dampened, however, by the cost factor. The newest, most-powerful lithium-based batteries are also less valuable to recycle than earlier ones.

Lithium is plentiful, compared with the nickel and cobalt found in hybrid and all-electric car batteries developed earlier, even if the main sources of the metal, in countries like Chile and Bolivia, are far from auto production centers.

''You can count on a constant and growing thirst for metals, including lithium,'' said P.Aswin Kumar, an analyst with Frost & Sullivan. ''But lithium still costs about five times more to recycle than to mine, so environmental laws will drive recycling for now.''

Shoebox-size, lead-acid batteries have powered ignition and lighting in gasoline- or diesel-powered cars for decades. They already are widely recycled, mainly because lead is such a health hazard.

The batteries for hybrid and all-electric cars are far more powerful and much larger, with some weighing about 250 kilograms, or 550 pounds. They also can be the car's most expensive component, mostly because of the complexity in making them, rather than the value of the materials.

Complicating the question of disposal, a large amount of energy remains stored even in partially discharged batteries. These could deliver harmful shocks and pose a serious fire hazard if mishandled.

For now, automakers are going their individual ways.

Toyota Motor, whose experience goes back to 1998, shortly after the introduction of the RAV4 all-electric vehicle, has established partnerships in Europe and the United States to recycle batteries, including those used in the hybrid Prius. This year, it began shipping some batteries from Prius models sold in the United States to Japan to take advantage of a more-efficient recycling process there.

Honda Motor recycled nearly 500 batteries during 2009 from the electric hybrid models it began selling in Japan more than a decade ago. But it still is exploring ways to structure that part of its business as it rolls out models like the Insight and the CR-Z.

General Motors and Nissan Motor, whose Chevrolet Volt and Nissan Leaf are newer to the market, are taking a different tack. They have agreements with power companies to develop ways of reusing old batteries, perhaps for storing wind or solar energy during peak generating times for later use.

Bayerische Motoren Werke, known for its premium BMW line, continues to carry out research on whether to recycle or reuse the batteries from its Mini E, an all-electric car it began leasing on a limited basis in 2009.

Meanwhile, some governments have begun to get involved to ensure that their car industries are not undermined by sourcing or safety issues.

In the United States, the Department of Energy has granted $9.5 million to Toxco to build a specialized recycling plant in Ohio for electric vehicle batteries. It is expected to begin operations next year, handling batteries from a variety of makes and models.

Another pilot plant being built in the German state of Lower Saxony is expected to open at the end of this month. The German government gave Chemetall, which is part of a consortium called LithoRec that includes Volkswagen and its Audi unit, (EURO)5.7 million, or $8.2 million, of the (EURO)14.3 million cost.

The British government granted £500,000, or $813,000, this year for a similar project to a group of companies including Axeon, which makes lithium-based car batteries.

Such recycling ''is entirely nonexistent in the U.K. at the moment,'' said Lawrence Berns, the chief executive of Axeon.

In Belgium, Umicore plans a formal opening for a (EURO)25 million plant in September in Hoboken, just outside of Antwerp, that can recover nearly all of the elements packed inside electric and hybrid car batteries, including cobalt, nickel, lithium and even rare earths like neodymium.

The plant uses intense heat - more than 1,300 degrees Celsius (2,370 Fahrenheit) - to strip away plastic coatings and creates a plasma, or ultrahigh-temperature gas, to separate metals and other materials.

The process yields tree-trunk-size chunks of gnarled metal alloy, some weighing more than 2,000 kilograms.

Umicore refines those chunks to create metals for resale to manufacturers of car batteries, wind turbines and other high-technology products.

It also recovers a gravelly substance, or slag, that Rhodia, a French chemical company, refines for rare earths like neodymium. Given the recent restrictions by China on exporting such materials, more companies are looking at doing the same.

Mr. Van Damme said the Umicore plant's design could be enlarged to handle more than a million car batteries each year; the current capacity is 150,000.

Even before the official inauguration, it has recycled some batteries from the Prius, mostly from models that were involved in accidents or scrapped early. Honda said that Umicore was ''a serious option'' for its future recycling plans.

But, so far, the only car company that has announced a deal with Umicore is Tesla Motors, of Palo Alto, California, whose electric roadsters start at more than $100,000. Tesla will pay to recycle its battery packs from models sold in Europe after seven to 10 years on the road. The final cost to Tesla would depend partly on the market value of the metals recovered by Umicore.

Tesla said that it was also working with Toxco in the United States.

Some manufacturers, like G.M. and Nissan, are focused on deferring recycling for as long as possible. They estimate that even at the end of their motoring life, the batteries should still be able to hold about 70 percent of the power of a new one.

Nissan has formed a joint venture called 4R Energy with Sumitomo, a Japanese conglomerate, aimed at using the old batteries for storing energy from renewable energy sources like wind and solar and for backup power supplies in emergencies.

It might be possible to ''make recycling a profitable business in the future,'' said Takashi Sakagami, the president of 4R Energy.

Similarly, G.M. is working with ABB, a Swiss engineering company, to identify ways to use old Chevrolet Volt batteries as backup power sources in the event of power failures, and to improve reliability of electricity grids.

Even after 10 years of driving, a ''second life'' of 20 years for the battery could be viable, said Pablo Valencia, a senior manager at G.M.

And afterward?

''We're still working on that, so stay tuned,'' he said.

BY JAMES KANTER, The International Herald Tribune

Green Parts - Claims Canada Magazine

At a recent Breakfast Summit on Recycled Parts held in Toronto, three key stakeholder groups – recyclers, insurers and repairers – came together to discuss areas of mutual concern and mutual opportunities. The Summit started an inter-industry dialogue that will begin to pay dividends for the stakeholders, and more importantly for the motoring public and the environment.


Total-loss vehicle claims are a lose-lose situation for everybody involved. They can result in higher claims payouts for the insurer and lost business for the collision repair industry. And it has been shown time and time again that policyholder satisfaction declines when their car is totaled. As these totals continue to rise at an alarming rate, it’s in everyone’s best interest to reverse the trend. Now, more than ever, recycled parts can have a greater role to play in saving a vehicle, and getting it repaired.

Re-using quality vehicle parts is also the ultimate environmental choice. No other product on earth is recycled more than an automobile. Not only does it keep a flood of dangerous toxins from being released into our ground, air and water, it prevents unnecessary use of valuable landfill. Re-using parts also reduces the need for new products to be manufactured and that saves energy and resources and reduces harmful emissions that result from the manufacturing process.

By incorporating more recycled parts into your repair plans, you’ll support a recycling industry that reclaims over 12 million vehicles across North America annually. It’s incumbent on every industry to be responsible stewards of the earth, ensuring a sustainable future for all of us.

But putting a greater focus on recycled parts is more than simply being a good corporate citizen or meeting KPI targets. It’s a smart business decision. By significantly reducing the cost of parts, we should all see a drop in the number of write-offs and non-repaired vehicles.

‘Like, Kind, Quality’ Assurance
One clear advantage of using recycled parts over aftermarket parts is the perfect fit. It is unmatched because you’re getting the original OEM parts made specifically for the year, make and model of that vehicle. That means the original specifications and the right performance.

Today’s reputable auto recyclers ensure there are no unpleasant surprises when you’re ordering recycled parts and do their best to make the process easy and efficient.

During dismantling, every part is inspected and only those that meet strict guidelines and tolerances are offered for resale. Mechanical parts are tested to ensure they’re in proper working condition.

When each component is dismantled for re-use, it is assigned an industry-wide interchange number that identifies which vehicle, model and type it fits. The part is then tagged with a bar code or inventory number, and then entered into a computerized inventory management system. With the click of a mouse, recyclers know what they have in stock and where it's warehoused so they can locate it in seconds. A sophisticated parts locator network connects the inventory data of hundreds of auto recyclers across the country, so if your local recycler doesn’t have the part you need, they will know where to get it.

Body panels and mechanical parts are carefully graded, using a standard set of codes that tells you the condition of the part in detail, including the mileage of the vehicle it came from and a description of any minor damage that might be present. These standards, developed by the Automotive Recyclers Association (ARA) have been adopted on an international scale and are built in to the inventory systems of all recyclers. Standard cut line diagrams and inclusions in part assemblies help clarify what you are getting when you order. You’ll know exactly what to expect before it arrives at the shop so there are no delays in getting the repair out the door.

As an industry, recyclers are working toward greater detail and uniformity in descriptive language and the addition of 3D imaging in their inventory databases as well as improvements to online ordering tools to make procuring recycled parts as easy as other alternatives going forward.

Auto recyclers also play a key role in the responsible disposition of salvaged vehicles, which in turn creates the inventory of parts to make available to insurers and repairers – a full circle of service that is beneficial to all.

Use Your Local Recycler As A Valuable Resource
While it’s relatively easy to source parts online, the adjusters who have had the most success using more recycled parts have typically forged strategic relationships with a few key parts advisors at their best local recyclers. Not only do these people make it simple, fast and painless to source and order the exact recycled part that’s right for any vehicle; they lend their knowledge and expertise as a broader resource. With a quick phone call, they can go far beyond merely filling an order for parts, and provide advice on all of the collateral parts you might need to go with it to complete your repair plan, many you might not have considered. Using recycled trim kits, door assemblies, radiators, mechanical parts, glass, window motors, light assemblies etc. can often make the difference between a viable repair and a total loss.


The Greening of the Consumer 

In days gone by, many consumers would be reluctant to use “salvage” parts in their repairs. In order to address the issue, the Automotive Recyclers of Canada (ARC) and their various provincial associations embarked on a significant consumer-focused marketing campaign to re-brand used parts as “Recycled Green Parts”, clearly communicating both the environmental and economic benefits to the general public. In addition, ARC has been instrumental in encouraging, and now mandating, the use of the National Code of Practice for Auto Recyclers, developed with Environment Canada.

This increased brand awareness and dramatic improvement in environmental operations, combined with a fundamental societal shift in “green” consumer behavior has made the use of “Green Parts” not only palatable to most, but desirable. These days, not only do people appreciate being offered a greener alternative in everything they purchase... they expect it. And when they’re rewarded with lower costs and fewer total losses, the payback in customer loyalty can be astounding.

You can find a certified auto recycler near you by accessing the Member roster on the ARC web site at www.autorecyclers.ca.

by Steven Fletcher, Managing Director of the Automotive Recyclers of Canada (ARC)

Ontario Automotive Recyclers Push for Standards

The Ontario Automotive Recyclers Association (OARA) is asking Ontario's political parties to endorse an industry led initiative to establish an environmental management system for end-of-life vehicles (ELV) in Ontario.

The ELV industry standard (ELV-IS) for environmental management has been developed by OARA in collaboration with the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers' Association (CVMA) and is designed to bring common environmental standards to the ELV recycling sector, while ensuring that automotive consumers do not face the burden of any new recycling fees.

Key Canadian environmental non-government and automotive consumer organizations have endorsed the environmental standards based approach.

This environmental management system will be a North American first for standardizing automotive recycling operations. Two out of 3 ELV generated in Ontario annually are not managed to any environmental standard whatsoever - the system will ensure the safe and responsible environmental management of approximately 550,000 ELV that require environmental decommissioning in Ontario each year.

The objective of ELV industry standard is to:

- Protect Ontario lands and waterways from discharges of hazardous and toxic substances;
- Reduce scrapyard fires;
- Increase reuse and recycling of automobile components and materials, drive continuous improvement in vehicle recycling while avoiding unnecessary economic impacts to auto recycling businesses;
- Create green jobs in the automotive recycling sector - a potential for over 1,500 incremental jobs in auto-parts reuse and recycling;
- Reduce fraudulent swapping of Vehicle Identification Numbers (VIN) by properly retiring them once a vehicle is recycled;
- Support vehicle manufacturers by ensuring access to a regulated system for ELV recycling where manufacturers choose to establish their own vehicle retirement programs; and
- Avoid consumer eco-fees on automobiles

The proposed environmental management system will require all businesses engaged in the recycling of ELVs in Ontario to be licensed and as a condition of licensing to adhere to a common vehicle decommissioning standard prior to any vehicle being recycled for its parts or metal value.

Building on Environment Canada's voluntary National Code of Practice for Automotive Recyclers developed for the National Vehicle Scrappage Program ("Retire Your Ride"), the new recycler's environmental performance standard will require automobile recyclers to safely remove and recycle environmentally sensitive substances such as fuel, engine oil, brake and transmission fluid, antifreeze, air conditioning refrigerants, and heavy metals such as lead and mercury.

The environmental management system will be managed by a not for profit End-of-Life Vehicle Industry Standards Council that will be governed by a multi-stakeholder board and will ensure that necessary oversight.

The Council will not have any authority or ability to levy fees or charges on automotive consumers or vehicle manufacturers. Rather, the Council's environmental standards oversight activities will be funded through licensing of automotive recyclers. A condition of licensing will be that anyone wishing to drop off an ELV to a licensed recycler will be able to do so free of charge.

Implementation of the new environmental management system requires the Ontario Government to amend Ontario's Environmental Protection Act and the Safety and Consumers Statute Administration Act to facilitate the creation of the environmental management system oversight body.

"Ontario's automobile recyclers welcome the opportunity to work with Ontario's auto manufacturing sector in developing the proposal", stated OARA Executive Director Steve Fletcher.

"Ontario's auto recycling industry already reuses or recycles up to 85% of your typical end-of-life vehicle but a lot of that recycling is not done to any specific environmental management standard. This often results in "cutting corners" resulting in poor environmental management practices. If implemented, the proposed environmental management system will ensure a common decommissioning standard for the substances of greatest environmental concern in your car. That's good for our industry and for Ontario's environment," notes Fletcher.

Ontario Minister of Economic Development and Trade, Sandra Pupatello, observed, "Improving and protecting our environment while creating jobs is a top priority for the McGuinty government and I am encouraged to see our automotive industry moving forward with this industry-led initiative."

"This is an important initiative for all automakers", states CVMA President Mark Nantais. "Government support in establishing this system to oversee a common recycling standard for managing vehicles is something we currently do not have. It will ensure that any vehicle retired in Ontario will be recycled in the most environmentally responsible manner possible," adding, "Automobiles are already one of, if not, the most recyclable complex consumer products on the market. Working with the well-established recycling industry to ensure that ELVs are properly decommissioned and recycled brings a higher level of confidence in environment protection."

"We envision a common environmental standard and a self-sustaining means to oversee that standard as the only way to both ensure improved environmental performance and economic growth in auto recycling in Canada" says, Wally Dingman, Chair of the Automotive Recyclers of Canada, adding, "For me, this is all about seeing more cars processed in a way that results in both better environmental outcomes and more jobs and investment in the almost two thousand auto recyclers operating across Canada."

BODYSHOPBIZ.COM 2011-08-11

The End-Of-Life Cycle: Achieving a sustainable automotive industry, starting with end of life

By Susan Sawyer-Beaulieu and Edwin K. L. Tam

Susan Sawyer-Beaulieu, PhD, a post doctorate fellow at the University of Windsor, recently presented results from her research at the 2010 International Round Table on Auto Recycling. Sawyer-Beaulieu has taken a scientific approach to learning how dismantling and shredding facilities manage end-of-life vehicles (ELVs). She is using life-cycle assessment methods to identify the efficiencies and inefficiencies of the ELV dismantling and shredding process. This will allow the auto recycling industry to benchmark the environmental contributions dismantlers make in the overall vehicle end-of-life recycling process. Here are some of her findings:

An estimated 14 million vehicles are retired from the road annually in the US and Canada, representing 20 million metric tonnes of mixed materials—metals, plastics, rubber, textiles, paper, wood, glass, ceramics, etc. (for an average “equivalent passenger vehicle” weight of 1455 kg). In Canada and the US, an estimated 14.4 million metric tonnes of metals are recovered from ELVs and recycled annually. These estimates, however, are largely based on recycled metals statistics derived from the scrap metals industry and average vehicle statistics published in literature. In addition, they do not account for parts and materials recovered by dismantlers and directed for reuse, remanufacturing and recycling independently of what is directed for shredding and metals recovery.

With the collaboration of several dismantlers and one shredding facility, we performed case studies, collected data and analyzed it to establish the mass flow of parts and materials through these facilities. The dismantling data were from both full-service and self-service operations. The parts and material mass fl ows were established as a percentage of the mass of high-salvage and low-salvage ELVs (HSELVs and LSELVs) processed by the participating dismantlers. What was the outcome?As much as 11.6 per cent of the ELVs’ weight entering the dismantling process are recovered and directed for either reuse, remanufacturing or recycling, including the recovered fl uids. The remaining 88.4 per cent of the weight is the leftover ELV hulks and “scrapped-out” parts that are directed for shredding and metals recovery. As much as 5.7 per cent of the ELVs (both LSELVs and HSELVs) were parts recovered and directed for reuse—4.9 per cent of the weight was from HSELVs and 0.8 per cent weight was from LSELVs.

Parts recovered for reuse included 151 part types from HSELVs and 598 part types from LSELVs. The reusable parts from LSELVs are based on parts sales through a self-service “UPIC” facility. Reusable HSELV parts recovery represented 36.9 per cent of the weight of the HSELVs processed. Reusable LSELV parts recovery was 0.93 per cent of the weight of the LSELVs processed.

Core parts recovered from HSELVs and sold for remanufacturing were only 0.1 per cent of the weight of the ELVs processed and consisted of six part types: starters, steering pumps, steering gears, calipers, alternators and A/C compressors. These are parts commonly collected and sold for remanufacturing, but are not all-inclusive. Recycled parts—tires, batteries, catalytic converters and mercury switches—amounted to almost four per cent of the weight of the ELVs processed. Tires represented a little more than half of the recycled parts.

Recovered fluids amounted to approximately 1.9 per cent weight processed ELVs’ weight—1.4 per cent directed for reuse (oils/lubricants) and 0.5 per cent that are recycled (antifreeze, windshield washer fluid, gasoline).

The estimated parts and materials recovery of almost 12 per cent by weight is based on data principally from one dismantler, supplemented with data from the other participating dismantlers to fi ll in data gaps. It is also based on a ratio of one HSELV processed for every seven to eight LSELVs or for every tonne of HSELVs processed approximately 6.5 tonnes of LSELVs are processed.

This ratio of HSELVs to LSELVs will vary from dismantler to dismantler, and consequently influence dismantling recoveries dismantler to dismantler. For dismantlers that process only HSELVs, parts and/or materials recoveries for reuse, remanufacture and “pre-shredder” recycling may be greater per tonne ELVs processed compared to this case. In contrast, for facilities that principally process LSELVs, parts and materials recoveries for reuse, remanufacture and “pre-shredder” recycling will likely be less than what was found in this case study; more materials will be directed for shredding and metals recovery.

Dismantling recoveries will also be influenced by the types and ages of vehicles processed, and local and/or regional parts demands and markets. For example, the re-manufacturable parts recovery established in this case study scenario, i.e. 0.1 per cent by weight of ELVs processed, is a relatively low value. The part types and part quantities that may be sold for remanufacturing will be driven by regional market demands, the availability and locality of parts re-manufacturers and the specifi c parts types the re-manufacturers’ process.

The participating dismantler indicated that the recovery of re-manufacturable core parts was a relatively low-volume business for them, principally because of the lack of locally available parts re-manufacturers to make core part recovery justifiable. Even though this case study scenario is based on data principally from one dismantler, it is a representative benchmark of dismantled parts and materials recoveries. We do not know, however, if these recoveries are high, low, or average compared to the amount of dismantled parts recovered on average from the entire North American “ELV fleet.”

According to the 3R principles—Reduce, Reuse, Recycle—reuse is preferable to recycling. Why is reuse preferable? Under what circumstances and by how much? These questions have been a challenge for auto recyclers to answer. Life-cycle assessment methods can help provide answers. Even though recovery and recycling operations recover materials, they are not free of environmental impacts or burdens. They consume resources and produce emissions. Instead of a more traditional comparisons of these burdens against regulatory compliance limits or guidelines, or relative to economic performance (e.g., cost benefit analysis), a life-cycle analysis can provide a more complete accounting of the materials and resource inputs and outputs for the dismantling and shredding process.

This articled appeared in the January 2011 issue of Canadian Auto Recyclers magazine.