As much as enthusiasts fawn over, dote on, and rub diapers across their rides, it's hard for them to comprehend that, at every other layer of the automotive strata, cars are just commodities. Consumer goods. And like other consumer goods, they have a limited life span. No matter how well they're made, how well they've been maintained or how fanatical the owner, some day they will all give up the ghost.
Once a car has done that, it's no longer someone's pride and joy. Its days of gratifying a new owner are through. Inviting the neighbors over to see the new toy, going for aimless cruises, and the cleansing sterility of fresh leather have all ebbed their flow. A car is no longer a car after it's reached the end of its service life. It's waste. And like most waste, cars are recyclable. Scratch that, they're among the most recycled products on the planet. In 1990, 75 percent of the weight of a car was recycled. By 2006, that figure had risen to 85 percent.
Some ten million cars will end their days during 2007. Their journey to rebirth begins at a dismantling facility-don't call it a mere junkyard. The title is stamped as "junk," turned in to the state and, even though it may not look the part, from that point on the car is condemned to never see the road again. Its VIN can never be re-issued, and the car can never be re-titled. The vehicle is dragged around back, a process that sounds a lot more dastardly than it actually is, and placed on an elevated rack, where a technician will start dismantling it.
Aluminum wheels that look scuzzy have their tires stripped off and are thrown into a standalone dumpster. Even with their thin coatings of paint and brake dust, aluminum wheels are considered a very desirable commodity for recyclers, who pay upwards of 75 cents a pound for them.
Catalytic converters can't be legally resold because there's no way to test their effectiveness - a salvaged cat may be worn out, melted, hollowed out, poisoned, or any other horrible thing. So those are torched off and sorted into another bin. They will be sold to recyclers who gut them of their monolithic ceramic or stainless steel cores, which are then ground down in order to reclaim the "washcoat" - the thin coating of rare and expensive platinum-group metals such as rhodium, platinum, and palladium. Different converters have different concentrations of those raw materials: The latest high-density catalysts from ultra-clean Partial-Zero Emissions Vehicles (PZEV) fetch upwards of $150. Bargain-bin "universal" converters bring a tenth that much.
With the car still up in the air, the brake hoses are cut, the fluid allowed to dribble into catch cans. Antifreeze, engine oil, and gear lube are all drained and sent to recyclers, who will distill, purify, and resell them. Refrigerant in the air-conditioning system is evacuated, cleaned, sorted according to type, and often resold to repair shops for fractions of its as-new cost.
After suffering the indignity of having its vital fluids piddled into drain pans, the car is lowered and the battery is removed. Batteries are nothing but a plastic shell and lead plates, and over 97 percent of a battery's weight - including even the acidic electrolyte sloshing around inside them - can be recycled.
Hoods and trunklids use mercury switches to turn on a light when they're opened. The switches are named because they actually do contain a drop of liquid mercury, and when they're tilted far enough is one direction, that blob rolls across two exposed wires, completing a circuit and making a cargo or hood lamp illuminate. Unfortunately, mercury is also a neurotoxin that can cause irreversible brain damage, so those switches can't be scrapped with the rest of the car. Dismantlers have a master list of every vehicle that contains mercury switches, and those equipped with them need to have the little offenders yanked out. The mercury ampule is then separated from the rest of the switch housing and tossed into a special recycling bin. HID headlights and navigation system screens use mercury, too, and those have to be broken down and recycled as well.
The car thus ravaged, any parts worth saving - an engine, a transmission, an alternator or starter - are pulled out and inventoried. The eviscerated body shell may be moved out into the junkyard proper, where it's picked clean of glass and interior bits, but that brief reprieve just postpones the inevitable. Every car that's come this far has a date with the crusher.
When thinking of crushers, we think of small, compacted car cubes, like the work of the French sculptor César or the poor '64 Continental from Goldfinger. But those don't come from a car crusher; they come from a baler. A baler has arms that "roll" the car into a brick nearly three feet wide and two feet high. A crusher, by contrast, is a car-sized wine press that squeezes vehicle bodies nearly flat. Regardless of how they're compacted, every compressed hulk's final journey is to the shredder.
Automotive shredders are incredibly specialized and thoroughly badass pieces of equipment that, as their name implies, will turn a full-size car into chunks no larger than a clenched fist - in less than twenty seconds. There are two flavors of shredders in use, the first of which uses a toothed steel drum to tear a car body into tiny shards, the other relying on a spinning drum with violently swinging anvils to pummel and shatter anything fed into it. Anything being the pivotal word. Cast-iron engine blocks are broken into fragments. Steel torsion bars are snapped like pretzel sticks. Truck frames are torn into pocket squares. Keeping the drum of a shredder spinning requires an enormous amount of power - the average electric motor used to drive one is rated at 7000 horsepower. To put it a different way, the combined output of thirty Crown Victoria Police Interceptors, straining at full throttle, wouldn't be the equal of one shredder motor.
Exiting the shredder is a rain of debris, pieces that are small enough to fit in a clutch purse. The trail of detritus is sent through electromagnetic rotating drums, which pull anything ferrous - that is, iron or steel - to the outside, letting the other chunks and fragments fall to another conveyor belt. The ferrous scrap is loaded into rail cars and sent to foundries and steel mills, where it will be melted down and re-formed. A majority of the shredder's output gets hauled off this way - steel and iron make up 60 percent of the average car's weight.
On top of that, 15 percent of a former car is nonferrous scrap metal like copper and aluminum. Once the steel and iron has been extracted, those leftover metals go through a process of sorting using electrical conductivity. As the fragments are tugged along by a moving belt, overhead probes measure how readily each piece lets electricity flow through it. The ease with which electricity passes through a piece determines its composition, and the scrap is sorted accordingly. Pieces of the copper wiring harness go one way, aluminum cylinder heads and suspension cradles go another, and before long the only thing remaining of someone's second-largest investment is what's known, in the industry, as fluff.
Fluff is the name given to the 25 percent of vehicular dross that's left over once everything of value has been subtracted from the mix. Just about everything that new-car buyers base their purchasing decision on - heated leather seats, plush carpeting, a premium stereo system, backlit LED gauges, and soft-touch dashboard materials - are reduced to fluff by the shredder. Thrown into the mix are shards of pulverized windows and mirrors, bits of headlights, flakes of rubber hoses, crumbs of door seals, and slices of the occasional spare tire that wasn't removed before the car was sent to the hereafter.
A majority of fluff is sent to landfills, which use it to blanket their daily trash dumps and fill in voids. As some four million tons of shredder fluff end up being dumped every year, entire industries have developed around sorting and recycling the otherwise-useless stuff. A process developed at Argonne National Laboratory in Argonne, Illinois, is able to sort out plastic and rubber refuse, which can then be recycled into sound absorption mats and mudflaps. Yet other companies, such as PSA Peugeot Citroen, are designing interiors to be knocked apart by dismantlers when the cars first come into the salvage yard.
It's been said that with the volume of air in the world, every breath you take includes molecules that were first breathed by da Vinci, or Julius Caesar, or Jesus. Scrap never really dies - it merely changes forms. The cars we're driving today could very well have started life in the coke ovens of Ford's River Rouge plant or the smelters of Stadt des KdF-Wagens in pre-war Germany. And while it seems apocryphal to suggest that yesterday's S-class could be reformed into today's Hyundai Accent, the converse progression also holds true. Scrap is the great equalizer; it knows no conceit. And so the cycle - from salvage to showroom - perpetuates itself.
By Wes Grueninger, MotiveMagazine.com
Thursday, December 06, 2007
Friday, November 30, 2007
Who consumes all those end of life vehicles?
Have you ever wondered who consumes all the end-of-life vehicles (ELV’s) in this province? If you have, you are not alone. About 1 million new automobiles are produced in the World each week, and in Ontario approximately 500,000 of them are put to rest each year.
An End-Of-Life Vehicle is one which has reached the end of the road by way of its age or collision write-off. The outcome is almost always the recycling of the vehicle for is scrap value however the processes used to achieve this differs widely. While some processes give ELV’s a respectable burial (utilizing proper equipment and care for its fluid removal) other processes do not. The issue of ELV’s is obviously an important one and Governments around the World are taking pro-active measures as they address the key issue of the environment. Much of the focus has been directed at the automakers to make their vehicles more recyclable. The ELV directive adopted last year requires all European Auto Makers to recycle or reuse 85% by weight of the metals and materials in each vehicle by 2006 and 95% by 2015. Significant progress is being made with the automakers but regardless of their efforts it does not solve the problem of what to do with the millions of vehicles that will eventually reach the end of the road.
At the Recycling Council of Ontario Roles and Responsibilities Forum, April 28, 1999 five distinct groups of businesses were identified that deal in the management of ELVs and irreparable vehicles.
Auto Dismantlers/Recyclers:
whose primary business is the sale of used auto parts. Material recovery is secondary. Fluid recovery is an integral part of processing each vehicle.
Salvage Yards:
whose primary business is metals recovery. The sale of used auto parts is secondary. Fluids are recovered if parts are to be removed. Scrap Metal Dealers/ Junk Yards: whose only business is metals recovery. Fluids generally are not recovered.
Car Dealers, Body Shops, Tow-Trucks:
This category includes backyard mechanics, and also auto thieves and organized international and domestic auto theft rings. Of the five distinct groups of businesses involved in the management of ELV’s only the Auto Dismantler/Recycler ensures fluid recovery as an integral part of the processing of each vehicle.
There has been some very interesting “shifts” that have taken place with the ELV. In years past it was safe to say that most vehicles were purchased by Auto Dismantlers/Recyclers for processing and then the to the scrap processors to carry on the recycling process. Today, this is not necessarily the case. Salvage yards and Scrap Metal Dealers do not incorporate the same processes as Auto Dismantlers to ensure that proper fluid evacuation and disposal of these fluids takes place.
The underground economy, which acquires vehicles from the public or at salvage auctions (where anyone with any business license can attend) also has a detrimental effect on the community in that parts are bought and sold for cash. The Government realizes no revenue from these transactions.
This fact, coupled with the realization that many salvage vehicles are being exported out of the country accounts for the reduction of available used parts for the public.
The benefits of recycling the ELV and the potential re-use of its parts is the only way to save our precious natural resources. It’s incredibly heartwarming to hear that 50% of parts bought in a Country like South Africa are used OEM parts. Wouldn’t it be nice if our country could top 10% and possibly 20% in the near future?
As for who consumes the ELV’s? There is no public agency keeping accurate records of vehicle disposal in this province. This may help explain why pro environmental fluid evacuation procedures have not been fully developed. You can’t fix what you don’t know is broken.
Hopefully, government agencies will get their act together and join the UCDA, OADA, Hamilton Auto Body Repair Association and the RCO to support the Ontario Auto Recyclers Association (OARA) initiatives of accreditation and licensing for our industry. OARA is here to help in the solution.
What does this mean to you? How can you help? Next time you are ready to scrap your vehicle, ensure that it goes to an accredited recycler, one that has the necessary equipment and facilities to properly handle that ELV responsibly.
By David Gold, Standard Auto Wreckers
An End-Of-Life Vehicle is one which has reached the end of the road by way of its age or collision write-off. The outcome is almost always the recycling of the vehicle for is scrap value however the processes used to achieve this differs widely. While some processes give ELV’s a respectable burial (utilizing proper equipment and care for its fluid removal) other processes do not. The issue of ELV’s is obviously an important one and Governments around the World are taking pro-active measures as they address the key issue of the environment. Much of the focus has been directed at the automakers to make their vehicles more recyclable. The ELV directive adopted last year requires all European Auto Makers to recycle or reuse 85% by weight of the metals and materials in each vehicle by 2006 and 95% by 2015. Significant progress is being made with the automakers but regardless of their efforts it does not solve the problem of what to do with the millions of vehicles that will eventually reach the end of the road.
At the Recycling Council of Ontario Roles and Responsibilities Forum, April 28, 1999 five distinct groups of businesses were identified that deal in the management of ELVs and irreparable vehicles.
Auto Dismantlers/Recyclers:
whose primary business is the sale of used auto parts. Material recovery is secondary. Fluid recovery is an integral part of processing each vehicle.
Salvage Yards:
whose primary business is metals recovery. The sale of used auto parts is secondary. Fluids are recovered if parts are to be removed. Scrap Metal Dealers/ Junk Yards: whose only business is metals recovery. Fluids generally are not recovered.
Car Dealers, Body Shops, Tow-Trucks:
This category includes backyard mechanics, and also auto thieves and organized international and domestic auto theft rings. Of the five distinct groups of businesses involved in the management of ELV’s only the Auto Dismantler/Recycler ensures fluid recovery as an integral part of the processing of each vehicle.
There has been some very interesting “shifts” that have taken place with the ELV. In years past it was safe to say that most vehicles were purchased by Auto Dismantlers/Recyclers for processing and then the to the scrap processors to carry on the recycling process. Today, this is not necessarily the case. Salvage yards and Scrap Metal Dealers do not incorporate the same processes as Auto Dismantlers to ensure that proper fluid evacuation and disposal of these fluids takes place.
The underground economy, which acquires vehicles from the public or at salvage auctions (where anyone with any business license can attend) also has a detrimental effect on the community in that parts are bought and sold for cash. The Government realizes no revenue from these transactions.
This fact, coupled with the realization that many salvage vehicles are being exported out of the country accounts for the reduction of available used parts for the public.
The benefits of recycling the ELV and the potential re-use of its parts is the only way to save our precious natural resources. It’s incredibly heartwarming to hear that 50% of parts bought in a Country like South Africa are used OEM parts. Wouldn’t it be nice if our country could top 10% and possibly 20% in the near future?
As for who consumes the ELV’s? There is no public agency keeping accurate records of vehicle disposal in this province. This may help explain why pro environmental fluid evacuation procedures have not been fully developed. You can’t fix what you don’t know is broken.
Hopefully, government agencies will get their act together and join the UCDA, OADA, Hamilton Auto Body Repair Association and the RCO to support the Ontario Auto Recyclers Association (OARA) initiatives of accreditation and licensing for our industry. OARA is here to help in the solution.
What does this mean to you? How can you help? Next time you are ready to scrap your vehicle, ensure that it goes to an accredited recycler, one that has the necessary equipment and facilities to properly handle that ELV responsibly.
By David Gold, Standard Auto Wreckers
Monday, November 26, 2007
Car-makers must reduce scrap from cars
Car manufacturers must do more to recycle cars for car-making to remain a sustainable proposition, according to a new report.
The study by Oxford Brookes University calls for new technologies, design approaches and better infrastructures to ensure cars generate less unusable waste.
The warning comes on the back of research which predicts that more cars will be built in the next 25 years than in the entire history of car-making to date - 1.48 billion by 2030 - thanks to a huge increase in demand from emerging economies.
That demand will see a massive increase in the amount of scrap generated by the industry, put at 3.5bn tonnes between now and 2030 - enough to fill Wembley Stadium more than 1,000 times.
Presently around 75% of material is recovered from scrapped cars, but plastics, rubber and glass are sent to landfill sites. By 2015 95% of all material used in cars must be recycled, according to EU legislation.
The report has been issues by DRIVENet – the UK Network for the design for dismantling, reuse and recycling in road vehicles, which is led by Oxford Brookes university.
Prof Allan Hutchinson, who co-authored the report - said: "How to dispose of vehicles more effectively may not be the most glamorous part of the motor industry, but it may well ultimately be the most important for a sustainable one.
"We believe this work can provide the basis for the extensive research necessary to develop new technologies together with the automotive industry to ensure its obligations can be met in a timely manner."
The study by Oxford Brookes University calls for new technologies, design approaches and better infrastructures to ensure cars generate less unusable waste.
The warning comes on the back of research which predicts that more cars will be built in the next 25 years than in the entire history of car-making to date - 1.48 billion by 2030 - thanks to a huge increase in demand from emerging economies.
That demand will see a massive increase in the amount of scrap generated by the industry, put at 3.5bn tonnes between now and 2030 - enough to fill Wembley Stadium more than 1,000 times.
Presently around 75% of material is recovered from scrapped cars, but plastics, rubber and glass are sent to landfill sites. By 2015 95% of all material used in cars must be recycled, according to EU legislation.
The report has been issues by DRIVENet – the UK Network for the design for dismantling, reuse and recycling in road vehicles, which is led by Oxford Brookes university.
Prof Allan Hutchinson, who co-authored the report - said: "How to dispose of vehicles more effectively may not be the most glamorous part of the motor industry, but it may well ultimately be the most important for a sustainable one.
"We believe this work can provide the basis for the extensive research necessary to develop new technologies together with the automotive industry to ensure its obligations can be met in a timely manner."
Friday, November 16, 2007
Clean Air Foundation wins the Gold Award in the Climate Change category for Car Heaven at the 2007 Canadian Environment Awards
Canadian Environment Awards – June 4, 2007
You may think of your ancient auto as a near-classic, but science is less sentimental. While your car may still have some roadworthy kilometres left, its fuel efficiency and emissions technologies don't compare to the sweet rides built today. Indeed, since you drove your circa 1991 car off the lot, the auto industry has reduced smog-forming vehicle exhausts by almost 90 percent, which means the longer old faithful stays on the road, the more harm it is doing to the environment.
And that's where the angels at Car Heaven can help. Car Heaven wants to give your old car the best afterlife possible — one that treads lightly on the Earth. "We're trying to connect the dots from the issue to a solution," says Fatima Dharsee, manager of the Toronto-based program. "We want to make it easy for people to do the right thing and deliver tangible environmental results in the process."
One of several environmental initiatives developed by the Clean Air Foundation, Car Heaven was launched in the Greater Toronto Area nearly seven years ago with private and public sector support. By the end of this year, it will be available in all 10 provinces. "Our goal is to link education and incentives to public action," explains Dharsee. "We try to work our idea into the auto recyclers' business models, using the best environmental practices."
A free tow, a tax-deductible donation to the charity of your choice, free transit passes and bicycle-buying rebates are among the incentives to get clunkers off the road for good. Plus you might be eligible to receive a $1,000 credit toward the purchase of a new GM vehicle. "After the first few years of the program, we saw that too many people were replacing their donated cars with other used vehicles," says Dharsee, "so we added the new-purchase incentive in 2005." At the auto recycler, your old beater is drained of its fluids, mercury switches are removed, any salvageable components are reclaimed and all remaining parts and materials, from engine to bumper, are stripped and slated for recycling or safe disposal.
With more than 47,000 vehicles marked RIP, Car Heaven is making Earth a little more like paradise for us all. Car Heaven is run in conjunction with the Automotive Recyclers of Canada and is member associations.
You may think of your ancient auto as a near-classic, but science is less sentimental. While your car may still have some roadworthy kilometres left, its fuel efficiency and emissions technologies don't compare to the sweet rides built today. Indeed, since you drove your circa 1991 car off the lot, the auto industry has reduced smog-forming vehicle exhausts by almost 90 percent, which means the longer old faithful stays on the road, the more harm it is doing to the environment.
And that's where the angels at Car Heaven can help. Car Heaven wants to give your old car the best afterlife possible — one that treads lightly on the Earth. "We're trying to connect the dots from the issue to a solution," says Fatima Dharsee, manager of the Toronto-based program. "We want to make it easy for people to do the right thing and deliver tangible environmental results in the process."
One of several environmental initiatives developed by the Clean Air Foundation, Car Heaven was launched in the Greater Toronto Area nearly seven years ago with private and public sector support. By the end of this year, it will be available in all 10 provinces. "Our goal is to link education and incentives to public action," explains Dharsee. "We try to work our idea into the auto recyclers' business models, using the best environmental practices."
A free tow, a tax-deductible donation to the charity of your choice, free transit passes and bicycle-buying rebates are among the incentives to get clunkers off the road for good. Plus you might be eligible to receive a $1,000 credit toward the purchase of a new GM vehicle. "After the first few years of the program, we saw that too many people were replacing their donated cars with other used vehicles," says Dharsee, "so we added the new-purchase incentive in 2005." At the auto recycler, your old beater is drained of its fluids, mercury switches are removed, any salvageable components are reclaimed and all remaining parts and materials, from engine to bumper, are stripped and slated for recycling or safe disposal.
With more than 47,000 vehicles marked RIP, Car Heaven is making Earth a little more like paradise for us all. Car Heaven is run in conjunction with the Automotive Recyclers of Canada and is member associations.
Friday, November 09, 2007
European Update
EGARA, the umbrella auto recycling association in Europe, meets next week in Brussels. As a prelude to the meeting they issue country reports providing status reports, new initiatives, etc. I have extracted a few of the germane concepts to show what our European brethren are dealing with. We seem to be all "suffering" from high scrap prices, unfair competition, and porous regulatory schemes.
UK:
• Illegal operators allowed to continue in business - affecting trading conditions.
• Vehicle salvage is still a sought after commodity, particularly 3 to 7 year old vehicles, pushing prices higher.
• Illegal activity of non-licensed sites is being pursued by the EA (Government). We at the MVDA believe this should be more energetic, with more resources thrown at these sites, rather than the ‘softer’ option of visiting those sites who want to comply, and are already licensed.
• Shortage of naturally arising ELV’s going to dismantling sites, we feel many go straight to the shredder
• Working with the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the Environment Agency (EA) to determine the official text defining the moment a motor vehicle becomes an ELV.
• Unlicensed sites – reporting known ones to the EA for action to be taken
• Putting pressure on government for changes to UK legislation re: COD's (Certificate of Destruction). There will be only 946,000 COD’s issued but 2 million vehicles reaching end of life this year!
Sweden:
• High scrap metal prices but the future is uncertain and there is a risk that we will see many abandoned ELVs.
Poland:
• In Poland 80% of ATFs (Authorized Treatment Facilities) now use shredders. ATF send scrap metals directly to steelworks.
• In Poland we have still problem that a lot of cars are not treated in ATF (90%)
• Every year, more than 100,000 ELVs cross the border and are dismantled by grey area in Poland.
• Control of flow cars between countries are needed.
• We need a control of number deregistered cars and number of ELVs treated by ATF to be sure that all car are treated by recycling system.
Denmark:
• 23 members of the Danish association are now ISO 9001:2000 Quality Certfication approved by the authorities and many of them for the third time!
• Our problems in Denmark are still the high prices when buying cars on the insurance internet-platforms.
Norway:
• Norway has a wreck deposit system where the last owner receives approximately 190€ ($260 Cdn) when the car is delivered to an approved ATF (a wreck deposit receipt is then being issues and the car is then defined an ELV). The wreck deposit system has been organised by the government since it was implemented in 1978 and has been very successful.
• The high scrap metal prices attract new actors to the business. The competition is getting harder.
• The concern however is that new actors do not focus on reuse. We have made an inquiry to the Ministry of the Environment to specify stronger in the Norwegian regulation for ELV the priority of reuse before recycle.
France:
• With the high scrap price, a large number of illegal operators are running after ELVs who would disappear if the prices were going down. They affect trading conditions.
• There is lack of elvs and more precisely salvage cars.
By the end of the year, the government has planned to re-start a take-back action of older or more polluting cars in exchange of a premium which could reach 1000€ ($1,390 Cdn)
Switzerland:
• All dismantlers have to get their licence to continue their activities. This licence has a time limit of maximum 5 years. After this period you have to apply again for it. Important: You must be audited by a third party = certification is compulsory. VASSO-Recycar-Cert is recognized as a valid certification. Dismantlers with no certification have to stop their business immediately.
• As an effect of unbelievable high scrap prices we have too much dealers in our country. They can live from this alone. They will disappear as soon the prices will go down. In them moment it is almost impossible to get enough cars. Even not for very good prices. Spare-part-business runs well, but there is a lack of supply in longer terms.
Estonia:
• Shredders have abruptly risen up the price for cars they paid directly for the last car owners. This way we get fewer cars as before. We do not believe they can treat the cars for recycling according the Directive.
Across Europe, scrap prices are in the $180 to $220 Cdn range.
UK:
• Illegal operators allowed to continue in business - affecting trading conditions.
• Vehicle salvage is still a sought after commodity, particularly 3 to 7 year old vehicles, pushing prices higher.
• Illegal activity of non-licensed sites is being pursued by the EA (Government). We at the MVDA believe this should be more energetic, with more resources thrown at these sites, rather than the ‘softer’ option of visiting those sites who want to comply, and are already licensed.
• Shortage of naturally arising ELV’s going to dismantling sites, we feel many go straight to the shredder
• Working with the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the Environment Agency (EA) to determine the official text defining the moment a motor vehicle becomes an ELV.
• Unlicensed sites – reporting known ones to the EA for action to be taken
• Putting pressure on government for changes to UK legislation re: COD's (Certificate of Destruction). There will be only 946,000 COD’s issued but 2 million vehicles reaching end of life this year!
Sweden:
• High scrap metal prices but the future is uncertain and there is a risk that we will see many abandoned ELVs.
Poland:
• In Poland 80% of ATFs (Authorized Treatment Facilities) now use shredders. ATF send scrap metals directly to steelworks.
• In Poland we have still problem that a lot of cars are not treated in ATF (90%)
• Every year, more than 100,000 ELVs cross the border and are dismantled by grey area in Poland.
• Control of flow cars between countries are needed.
• We need a control of number deregistered cars and number of ELVs treated by ATF to be sure that all car are treated by recycling system.
Denmark:
• 23 members of the Danish association are now ISO 9001:2000 Quality Certfication approved by the authorities and many of them for the third time!
• Our problems in Denmark are still the high prices when buying cars on the insurance internet-platforms.
Norway:
• Norway has a wreck deposit system where the last owner receives approximately 190€ ($260 Cdn) when the car is delivered to an approved ATF (a wreck deposit receipt is then being issues and the car is then defined an ELV). The wreck deposit system has been organised by the government since it was implemented in 1978 and has been very successful.
• The high scrap metal prices attract new actors to the business. The competition is getting harder.
• The concern however is that new actors do not focus on reuse. We have made an inquiry to the Ministry of the Environment to specify stronger in the Norwegian regulation for ELV the priority of reuse before recycle.
France:
• With the high scrap price, a large number of illegal operators are running after ELVs who would disappear if the prices were going down. They affect trading conditions.
• There is lack of elvs and more precisely salvage cars.
By the end of the year, the government has planned to re-start a take-back action of older or more polluting cars in exchange of a premium which could reach 1000€ ($1,390 Cdn)
Switzerland:
• All dismantlers have to get their licence to continue their activities. This licence has a time limit of maximum 5 years. After this period you have to apply again for it. Important: You must be audited by a third party = certification is compulsory. VASSO-Recycar-Cert is recognized as a valid certification. Dismantlers with no certification have to stop their business immediately.
• As an effect of unbelievable high scrap prices we have too much dealers in our country. They can live from this alone. They will disappear as soon the prices will go down. In them moment it is almost impossible to get enough cars. Even not for very good prices. Spare-part-business runs well, but there is a lack of supply in longer terms.
Estonia:
• Shredders have abruptly risen up the price for cars they paid directly for the last car owners. This way we get fewer cars as before. We do not believe they can treat the cars for recycling according the Directive.
Across Europe, scrap prices are in the $180 to $220 Cdn range.
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