The best auto recyclers carefully remove any reusable parts, such as tires and wheels, for resale and drain any remaining fluids for safe disposal.
"A free-for-all."
"An abomination."
Strong words about an industry that's supposed to perform a beneficial service.
And they come from people within it.
They are car recyclers.
It isn't fresh news that there are problems and scams among those who dismantle and dispose of old or wrecked vehicles. What is astonishing is that solutions are as obvious as they are ignored.
There are good operators: Most belong to the Ontario Automotive Recyclers Association and its national counterpart. But they are a small minority. The term "abomination" came from association member David Gold, of Scarborough's Standard Auto Wreckers. "Anyone can do anything, and everyone does do everything," he says.
Gold estimates careful businesses handle just 10 per cent of all end-of-life vehicles, or ELVs. That leaves plenty who don't do the job properly.
They buy cars, strip the most profitable bits, then send the rest for crushing without removing the battery, filters, mercury switch and the 40 or 50 litres of fluids each usually contains. The contaminants get into the environment, mainly into groundwater or, through sewers, into lakes and rivers. Mercury, which attacks the nervous system, can be released into the air if it's mixed with scrap steel in a blast furnace. Refrigerants escape to attack the ozone.
The Ontario Automotive Recyclers Association has its own code. But it's voluntary. The province inspects recyclers after complaints, but imposes no overall standards. While municipal approval is required to openly set up shop, there are no rules that each ELV and its contents must be accounted for.
Nothing prevents anyone from buying cars, dragging them to a warehouse and stripping them behind closed doors, before hauling the remnants to one of many crushers – who aren't required to ask questions, and don't.
"They're not licensed ... they don't have our expenses or responsibilities," says Jordan Waxman of Hollywood North Auto Parts. "If they're not licensed, they shouldn't be allowed to dismantle vehicles."
"If you've got a tow truck and a cellphone and can pay cash for cars, no one is really stopping you from that," says Steve Fletcher, the association's executive director. He's the one who described the situation as a free-for-all.
Licensing would go a long way to clean up the industry.
Most ELVs come from insurance auctions or car dealerships. These sources could be required to sell only to licensed recyclers who abide by strict standards.
It would also help to require cars to be officially deregistered before they're scrapped. Europe and Japan do that. To give their systems teeth, they impose a disposal fee when a car is bought. It's passed on to any buyer during the car's life and is refunded to the final owner.
The European Union has directed each member country to achieve 90 per cent recycling or reuse of cars by 2012. We don't need that kind of rule since, in terms of such numbers, cars are actually a recycling success here. Even illicit operators keep 75 to 80 per cent of a car's components out of landfills.
They just do it in a way that harms the environment.
The big mystery is why government won't crack down. Surely it isn't cowering before a powerful lobby representing environmental pirates. Does it fear insurance auctioneers, worried that licensing might reduce the number of bidders and depress their profits?
"We're looking to be regulated," Gold says. "What's holding government back?"
A very good question.
PETER GORRIE, TORONTO STAR
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Auto wreckers scrap the old ways
Junkyards are dogged by greasy stereotypes, but that's changing in the age of recycling
Battered cars, far removed from their glittering showroom days, occupy most of the dirt yard behind the gaudily painted fence.
In a front corner, used tires – some on wheels, all with sizes scrawled in yellow marker – fill several racks.
Out back sit piles of crushed cars, eight high, flattened to less than a quarter of their original gleaming height.
A constant trickle of customers enters the office – a trailer with vintage 1960s dark brown panelling – to inquire about tires, mirrors, hoods and mufflers.
The scene and the odour of deeply embedded oil and grease suggest nothing has changed in the car-wrecking business. A junkyard is still a junkyard.
Not always true, says Jordan Waxman, who runs this yard, Hollywood North Auto Parts. In the east end of downtown Toronto, it's the latest version of a family company that has taken in unwanted vehicles for more than a century. Waxman is among a small group trying to change the industry.
Car recycling is virtually unregulated in most of North America. What happens to your vehicle when it reaches the end of its road, because of age or accident, depends on what kind of operation it goes to.
Almost everyone who takes in cars does the same basic things: Valuable parts are removed, the rest is sold for scrap. But some do the job carefully, in ways that make efficient use of the materials and protect the environment, while others make the biggest, quickest profit, and usually leave a mess.
"We're trying to get away from the image of the junkyard," says Michael Carcone, whose business is in Aurora. "We're a green company. We are recyclers."
Every year, about 1.2 million cars and light trucks are taken off the road across Canada, half in Ontario. They're known as end-of-life vehicles, or ELVs.
Car recyclers buy them through insurance company auctions or from dealerships, charities and individuals. The price ranges from $50 to thousands of dollars.
Once a recycler has obtained some cars, this is how they should be handled, according to the Ontario Automotive Recyclers Association:
The best vehicles – quite often late-model insurance writeoffs – have their reusable parts carefully removed, cleaned and tested for resale. Computerized records are transforming this side of the business. Recyclers can offer or search for parts online. By carefully keeping track of how well various parts sell, they know which are worth the trouble of removing and cleaning.
Carcone knows, for example, that a 2002 Toyota Camry has 14 parts likely to be bought. They're removed right away. The rest of the car is stored for a few months in case someone calls for a component – anything from an oil pan to a CD player.
Most lower-quality cars are made available for backyard mechanics to pull off parts for themselves. Those in the worst shape go directly to the crusher. Eventually, that's the fate of almost every ELV.
First, though, batteries and gas tanks are removed. Good ones are resold. The rest go to companies that recycle or safely dispose of their components. Tires, too, either become second-hand items or are shredded for use as a fuel in incinerators or cement kilns. They're also made into building materials, road surfacing, mats and other products.
Any remaining gas, oil, antifreeze, windshield cleaner and other fluids – an average of 40 to 50 litres per car – is drained out and cleaned for use. Mercury switches, found only in pre-2004 models, are taken out so the dangerous metal can be recovered.
Crushed cars go to shredders that break them into tiny pieces. Magnets and other devices separate the component metals, which make up about 75 per cent of the vehicle. What's left behind – an assortment of plastics, cloth, rubber and broken glass – is known as fluff. Some of it can, in theory, be recycled, but for now, those in the industry say the markets are too small and prices too low for that. So most of it goes to landfill.
There's good and bad news on that front, says Steve Fletcher of the Recyclers Association. On one hand, increasing use of composite and sandwiched materials makes recycling more difficult. On the other hand, carmakers are trying to reduce the number of plastics they use and are developing materials made of hemp, flax and other organic materials.
Japanese manufacturers now collect plastic bumpers for recycling. They're also trying to figure out what to do with the increasing number of plastic gas tanks: A report from Honda concludes the best option might be to incinerate them, to produce heat and electricity.
Unfortunately, most ELVs are not handled properly, says David Gold of Standard Auto Wreckers in northeast Scarborough. Cars are now too valuable to be dumped in fields or along roadsides.
But unlike Europe and Japan, Ontario – and most of Canada, in fact – has no performance standards or regulations for the industry. There's just a voluntary code established by the association.
As a result, about 90 per cent of ELVs end up with operators who strip off the most valuable parts, such as copper from radiators and precious metals from catalytic converters, and crush the rest, without draining the fluids or removing batteries and other hazardous parts. So toxic materials spill onto the ground, where they can seep into the sewer system, and many valuable parts and materials are wasted.
How can you tell what will happen to your vehicle?
You can try to make sure it goes to an association-certified recycler. That isn't always easy, particularly if you leave it with the dealer where you buy your new car.
You can also take it to Car Heaven, a non-profit program managed in Ontario and several other provinces by the Clean Air Foundation. It offers a small tax receipt and ensures your ELV is carefully disposed of.
Unlike many legitimate recyclers, it doesn't allow engines, mufflers or pollution-control parts to be resold. Next year, it's to be expanded to a national program with bigger incentives.
PETER GORRIE SPECIAL TO TORONTO STAR
Battered cars, far removed from their glittering showroom days, occupy most of the dirt yard behind the gaudily painted fence.
In a front corner, used tires – some on wheels, all with sizes scrawled in yellow marker – fill several racks.
Out back sit piles of crushed cars, eight high, flattened to less than a quarter of their original gleaming height.
A constant trickle of customers enters the office – a trailer with vintage 1960s dark brown panelling – to inquire about tires, mirrors, hoods and mufflers.
The scene and the odour of deeply embedded oil and grease suggest nothing has changed in the car-wrecking business. A junkyard is still a junkyard.
Not always true, says Jordan Waxman, who runs this yard, Hollywood North Auto Parts. In the east end of downtown Toronto, it's the latest version of a family company that has taken in unwanted vehicles for more than a century. Waxman is among a small group trying to change the industry.
Car recycling is virtually unregulated in most of North America. What happens to your vehicle when it reaches the end of its road, because of age or accident, depends on what kind of operation it goes to.
Almost everyone who takes in cars does the same basic things: Valuable parts are removed, the rest is sold for scrap. But some do the job carefully, in ways that make efficient use of the materials and protect the environment, while others make the biggest, quickest profit, and usually leave a mess.
"We're trying to get away from the image of the junkyard," says Michael Carcone, whose business is in Aurora. "We're a green company. We are recyclers."
Every year, about 1.2 million cars and light trucks are taken off the road across Canada, half in Ontario. They're known as end-of-life vehicles, or ELVs.
Car recyclers buy them through insurance company auctions or from dealerships, charities and individuals. The price ranges from $50 to thousands of dollars.
Once a recycler has obtained some cars, this is how they should be handled, according to the Ontario Automotive Recyclers Association:
The best vehicles – quite often late-model insurance writeoffs – have their reusable parts carefully removed, cleaned and tested for resale. Computerized records are transforming this side of the business. Recyclers can offer or search for parts online. By carefully keeping track of how well various parts sell, they know which are worth the trouble of removing and cleaning.
Carcone knows, for example, that a 2002 Toyota Camry has 14 parts likely to be bought. They're removed right away. The rest of the car is stored for a few months in case someone calls for a component – anything from an oil pan to a CD player.
Most lower-quality cars are made available for backyard mechanics to pull off parts for themselves. Those in the worst shape go directly to the crusher. Eventually, that's the fate of almost every ELV.
First, though, batteries and gas tanks are removed. Good ones are resold. The rest go to companies that recycle or safely dispose of their components. Tires, too, either become second-hand items or are shredded for use as a fuel in incinerators or cement kilns. They're also made into building materials, road surfacing, mats and other products.
Any remaining gas, oil, antifreeze, windshield cleaner and other fluids – an average of 40 to 50 litres per car – is drained out and cleaned for use. Mercury switches, found only in pre-2004 models, are taken out so the dangerous metal can be recovered.
Crushed cars go to shredders that break them into tiny pieces. Magnets and other devices separate the component metals, which make up about 75 per cent of the vehicle. What's left behind – an assortment of plastics, cloth, rubber and broken glass – is known as fluff. Some of it can, in theory, be recycled, but for now, those in the industry say the markets are too small and prices too low for that. So most of it goes to landfill.
There's good and bad news on that front, says Steve Fletcher of the Recyclers Association. On one hand, increasing use of composite and sandwiched materials makes recycling more difficult. On the other hand, carmakers are trying to reduce the number of plastics they use and are developing materials made of hemp, flax and other organic materials.
Japanese manufacturers now collect plastic bumpers for recycling. They're also trying to figure out what to do with the increasing number of plastic gas tanks: A report from Honda concludes the best option might be to incinerate them, to produce heat and electricity.
Unfortunately, most ELVs are not handled properly, says David Gold of Standard Auto Wreckers in northeast Scarborough. Cars are now too valuable to be dumped in fields or along roadsides.
But unlike Europe and Japan, Ontario – and most of Canada, in fact – has no performance standards or regulations for the industry. There's just a voluntary code established by the association.
As a result, about 90 per cent of ELVs end up with operators who strip off the most valuable parts, such as copper from radiators and precious metals from catalytic converters, and crush the rest, without draining the fluids or removing batteries and other hazardous parts. So toxic materials spill onto the ground, where they can seep into the sewer system, and many valuable parts and materials are wasted.
How can you tell what will happen to your vehicle?
You can try to make sure it goes to an association-certified recycler. That isn't always easy, particularly if you leave it with the dealer where you buy your new car.
You can also take it to Car Heaven, a non-profit program managed in Ontario and several other provinces by the Clean Air Foundation. It offers a small tax receipt and ensures your ELV is carefully disposed of.
Unlike many legitimate recyclers, it doesn't allow engines, mufflers or pollution-control parts to be resold. Next year, it's to be expanded to a national program with bigger incentives.
PETER GORRIE SPECIAL TO TORONTO STAR
Salvaging useful car parts
Don't call it a scrapyard. Or junkyard. Or boneyard. "It's a recycling yard, a recycling centre, a salvage yard," says Don Laniel firmly.
Laniel is general manager of the sprawling but pristine Sonshine Auto Parts just south of Cumberland Village. Spread over about 30 acres, Sonshine has 2,100 vehicles in stock, and they're anything but the canted hulks we think of when Arlo Guthrie sings about "the graveyards of rusted automobiles."
"We have a minimal number of vehicles older than 1996; we actually have some 2009s in here," says Laniel with pride. Sounding like a mortician describing the meticulous preparation of a corpse for viewing, he continues, "the gas tanks are removed and the fluids are all drained. We have a special area for the batteries, and we recycle the gas by using it in our own fleet. The oil and the Prestone and the CFCs are collected and picked up by a company for recycling."
Heck, the place is so squeaky clean that customers have compared it to a doctor's office. Speaking of doctors, there's even a small putting green out front.
With $4 to $5 million of inventory on hand, Sonshine sells parts – alternators, mirrors, entire engines – mostly to service stations and bigger shops. And thanks to the company's membership in auto parts recycling associations in Canada and the United States, those parts could wind up almost anywhere.
But there's still walk-in trade, says Laniel – DIY folks looking for anything from a taillight to a "red fender for a 2003 Ford F-150" that Sonshine's bells-and-whistles inventory system will immediately locate. Or not. Sometimes it has to be ordered from another recycler. But at a saving of 50 per cent compared to a new part, and with a warranty of 90 days, it can be well worth the wait.
Sales, Laniel says, follow the seasons. Air conditioning compressors are a hot item in the summer, while this time of year brings customers looking for rims and tires.
No matter what the season, "It's a blast here," says Laniel. "We've got five salesmen, and it's always interesting. You're never dealing with the same issues. I'm in here at seven in the morning and most nights I don’t get home ’til seven."
A self-employed body man by trade whose profession was taking its toll on his own body, Laniel was coaxed into joining Sonshine by Denis Desjardins, a long-time friend and owner of the recycling yard. In addition to overseeing 24 staff, Laniel journeys to car auctions and attends trade shows.
If you stop in at Sonshine, don’t expect to go stumping around the yard, wrenches in hand. A common site in the boneyards of earlier decades, that's now off-limits because of insurance and liability issues. Instead, Sonshine employees remove the parts.
And when there's nothing left to remove, it's time for the big squeeze. Sonshine's mighty crusher reduces the picked-over automobiles to a mere 24-inches high for shipment to one of several companies that grind the cars into small bits of metal. Those bits join the roughly 145 million tons of scrap produced every year in North America that re-enter the manufacturing cycle instead of plugging landfills.
With this sort of identification and utilization of every useful element, it's no wonder Laniel calls automotive recycling an "economic science."
Just don't call it a scrapyard.
by Patrick Langston, Orleans Star / Weekly Journal, Daily news from Orléans and East Ottawa
Laniel is general manager of the sprawling but pristine Sonshine Auto Parts just south of Cumberland Village. Spread over about 30 acres, Sonshine has 2,100 vehicles in stock, and they're anything but the canted hulks we think of when Arlo Guthrie sings about "the graveyards of rusted automobiles."
"We have a minimal number of vehicles older than 1996; we actually have some 2009s in here," says Laniel with pride. Sounding like a mortician describing the meticulous preparation of a corpse for viewing, he continues, "the gas tanks are removed and the fluids are all drained. We have a special area for the batteries, and we recycle the gas by using it in our own fleet. The oil and the Prestone and the CFCs are collected and picked up by a company for recycling."
Heck, the place is so squeaky clean that customers have compared it to a doctor's office. Speaking of doctors, there's even a small putting green out front.
With $4 to $5 million of inventory on hand, Sonshine sells parts – alternators, mirrors, entire engines – mostly to service stations and bigger shops. And thanks to the company's membership in auto parts recycling associations in Canada and the United States, those parts could wind up almost anywhere.
But there's still walk-in trade, says Laniel – DIY folks looking for anything from a taillight to a "red fender for a 2003 Ford F-150" that Sonshine's bells-and-whistles inventory system will immediately locate. Or not. Sometimes it has to be ordered from another recycler. But at a saving of 50 per cent compared to a new part, and with a warranty of 90 days, it can be well worth the wait.
Sales, Laniel says, follow the seasons. Air conditioning compressors are a hot item in the summer, while this time of year brings customers looking for rims and tires.
No matter what the season, "It's a blast here," says Laniel. "We've got five salesmen, and it's always interesting. You're never dealing with the same issues. I'm in here at seven in the morning and most nights I don’t get home ’til seven."
A self-employed body man by trade whose profession was taking its toll on his own body, Laniel was coaxed into joining Sonshine by Denis Desjardins, a long-time friend and owner of the recycling yard. In addition to overseeing 24 staff, Laniel journeys to car auctions and attends trade shows.
If you stop in at Sonshine, don’t expect to go stumping around the yard, wrenches in hand. A common site in the boneyards of earlier decades, that's now off-limits because of insurance and liability issues. Instead, Sonshine employees remove the parts.
And when there's nothing left to remove, it's time for the big squeeze. Sonshine's mighty crusher reduces the picked-over automobiles to a mere 24-inches high for shipment to one of several companies that grind the cars into small bits of metal. Those bits join the roughly 145 million tons of scrap produced every year in North America that re-enter the manufacturing cycle instead of plugging landfills.
With this sort of identification and utilization of every useful element, it's no wonder Laniel calls automotive recycling an "economic science."
Just don't call it a scrapyard.
by Patrick Langston, Orleans Star / Weekly Journal, Daily news from Orléans and East Ottawa
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Vehicle Recycling Partnership (VRP) Video
Watch a vide from the Vehicle Recycling Partnership (VRP), a pre-competitive coalition of auto manufacturers, and their perspectives on the North American auto recycling industry.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Help needed to meet EU car recovery targets: industry
LONDON (Reuters) - The European Union's target to recover 95 percent of all materials used in cars by 2015 is achievable but will depend on new technologies and services, according to the car and scrap metal industries.
"At the moment 85 percent is more or less achievable, but going from 85 to 95 is a bit of a jump," one metals recycler said.
"It is all about having the technologies to recover the plastics and the rubber or use them as fuel," the recycler told Reuters recently.
The end-of-life vehicle (ELV) directive went into force in 2000 to deal with the 8-to-9 million tons of waste generated annually from scrapped cars in Europe.
By 2015, 85 percent of the materials in a scrapped car must be reusable or recycled and 95 percent of them must be recovered. This figure is up from a total recovery target of 85 percent in 2006.
Most metals, including copper, steel and lead -- which is found in car batteries -- have been recovered for some time.
It is materials like rubber and plastic that pose the recycling problem, and it has fallen to metal recyclers, who typically receive scrapped cars, to deal with it.
"The car manufacturers should be responsible (to reach the EU targets) -- but a lot of the responsibilities seem to have been passed onto our sector for meeting the targets," said Peter Brookes, director of United Kingdom-based recycler Metal and Waste Recycling Ltd.
"All vehicles end up coming to metal recycling yards for handling, de-pollution and then shredding ... and anything that cannot be recycled ends up in our waste stream."
Technologies to mechanically sort the plastics and other light materials out of the waste stream are not sufficient.
"The plastics recycling industry in the UK is mainly about plastic bottles ... so it isn't just a matter of getting the material out of the post-shredder stream -- it is a matter of finding a market for the material," the costs firmly with the metal recyclers," said Lindsay Millington, director general of the British Metals Recycling Association (BMRA).
Brookes of Metal and Waste Recycling said it would help if car manufacturers developed a recycling route for the plastics and funded more research into how to best sort and recycle these materials.
Britain fell short of the 2006 medium-term target, getting
a reuse, recycling and recovery rate of 83.53 percent, up from an estimated rate of 81 percent in 2005, an industry source said.
"If the material was burned in a waste-to-energy power station we could recover the energy and that would count toward the target," Brookes said.
Currently, Britain has no waste-to-energy infrastructure to handle toxic car waste.
Many EU countries give subsidies to the recycling industry or have programs in which new automobile buyers must pay a contribution toward car recycling. However in the United Kingdom, the commercial market must deal with the recovery of material.
"The way the end-of-life vehicle directive has been implemented in the UK has left all the responsibility and all the costs firmly with the metal recyclers," said Lindsay Millington, director general of the British Metals Recycling Association (BMRA).
Renault has changed some of its designs and materials to try to meet the recyclables target, but the French car manufacturer said it is not enough.
"We have introduced recyclable plastics in our cars, but it is not sufficient," said Jean-Philippe Hermine, responsible for implementation of the ELV directive at Renault.
"We have to help the recycler to develop plastics that can enter their processes," Hermine said.
by Anna Stablum, Reuters
"At the moment 85 percent is more or less achievable, but going from 85 to 95 is a bit of a jump," one metals recycler said.
"It is all about having the technologies to recover the plastics and the rubber or use them as fuel," the recycler told Reuters recently.
The end-of-life vehicle (ELV) directive went into force in 2000 to deal with the 8-to-9 million tons of waste generated annually from scrapped cars in Europe.
By 2015, 85 percent of the materials in a scrapped car must be reusable or recycled and 95 percent of them must be recovered. This figure is up from a total recovery target of 85 percent in 2006.
Most metals, including copper, steel and lead -- which is found in car batteries -- have been recovered for some time.
It is materials like rubber and plastic that pose the recycling problem, and it has fallen to metal recyclers, who typically receive scrapped cars, to deal with it.
"The car manufacturers should be responsible (to reach the EU targets) -- but a lot of the responsibilities seem to have been passed onto our sector for meeting the targets," said Peter Brookes, director of United Kingdom-based recycler Metal and Waste Recycling Ltd.
"All vehicles end up coming to metal recycling yards for handling, de-pollution and then shredding ... and anything that cannot be recycled ends up in our waste stream."
Technologies to mechanically sort the plastics and other light materials out of the waste stream are not sufficient.
"The plastics recycling industry in the UK is mainly about plastic bottles ... so it isn't just a matter of getting the material out of the post-shredder stream -- it is a matter of finding a market for the material," the costs firmly with the metal recyclers," said Lindsay Millington, director general of the British Metals Recycling Association (BMRA).
Brookes of Metal and Waste Recycling said it would help if car manufacturers developed a recycling route for the plastics and funded more research into how to best sort and recycle these materials.
Britain fell short of the 2006 medium-term target, getting
a reuse, recycling and recovery rate of 83.53 percent, up from an estimated rate of 81 percent in 2005, an industry source said.
"If the material was burned in a waste-to-energy power station we could recover the energy and that would count toward the target," Brookes said.
Currently, Britain has no waste-to-energy infrastructure to handle toxic car waste.
Many EU countries give subsidies to the recycling industry or have programs in which new automobile buyers must pay a contribution toward car recycling. However in the United Kingdom, the commercial market must deal with the recovery of material.
"The way the end-of-life vehicle directive has been implemented in the UK has left all the responsibility and all the costs firmly with the metal recyclers," said Lindsay Millington, director general of the British Metals Recycling Association (BMRA).
Renault has changed some of its designs and materials to try to meet the recyclables target, but the French car manufacturer said it is not enough.
"We have introduced recyclable plastics in our cars, but it is not sufficient," said Jean-Philippe Hermine, responsible for implementation of the ELV directive at Renault.
"We have to help the recycler to develop plastics that can enter their processes," Hermine said.
by Anna Stablum, Reuters
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