Automotive Industry Trends

The Nature of Automotive Recycling

Issue Table of Contents

The Nature of Automotive Recycling Motivations for recycling: a look at all the issues Automotive Shredder Residue: The final mile in automotive recycling Automotive Recycling Standards and Related Publications

According to the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, auto recycling is as old as the car itself. Today, cars are one of the most recycled consumer items. Approximately 82 percent of an average vehicle’s weight gets recycled. Automakers often manufacture recycled materials into new vehicles; in some cases, recycled materials are used in the production process. The amount of material per car, however, makes it critical to improve the recyclable amount, since 18 percent of a car is still a lot of leftover material ending up in landfills. Automakers struggle to increase this amount as well as the amount of End-of-Life material that heads back into the automobile production cycle.

When a vehicle reaches end-of-life, drivers typically drop off their old vehicles at a junk yard, salvage yard or dismantler. Across the United States and Europe, a network of auto-dismantlers and shredders recycles 95 percent of the vehicles that come off the road. The dismantler first strips out parts suitable for reuse or re-manufacturing. Re-manufactured parts contain 85 percent of the original materials in the new part, with a cost of production about 50 percent less than a new part. These parts typically head back into cars that are eight to twelve years old.

After removing valuable parts, dismantlers send the bulk of a vehicle through a scrapper or shredder that separates the vehicle’s material content by breaking it into small pieces. The scrapper separates the metal from other materials. This leftover vehicle metal (steel, iron, aluminum), upwards of 75 percent of a vehicle, is critical to the metal supply chain. Scrap metal is usually mixed with virgin metal before returning to the manufacturers, though in some cases, scrap metals meet auto standards without being mixed. Automakers press and stamp this metal into chassis, engines, sides, and other parts.

The remaining contents, termed Automobile Shredder Residue (ASR), consist of plastic, rubber, glass, and undrained fluids more difficult to recycle. The challenge to recycle ASR material increases as more and more plastic replaces metal in new car production. Fortunately, automakers continue to devise new uses for recycled materials.

Used tires, though still a serious landfill problem, are recyclable. Manufacturers can now safely build new tires with 10 percent recycled tire rubber material. Recycled tire rubber is also used in floor mats and mud flaps.

Designing vehicles with recycling in mind further reduces the solid waste stream. It also makes it easier and cheaper to dismantle vehicles when they reach end-of-life. Manufacturers now give more consideration to the materials selected in part creation. Using materials that are cost effective to recycle plus documenting how to remove valuable parts helps promote recovery. To assist in this process, manufacturers provide End-of-Life-Vehicle (ELV) dismantling manuals that list parts and their material content.

New recycling programs sometimes begin at individual automakers, then spread through the industry after a program shows success.

Over the last two years, Volkswagen (VW) worked with dismantlers and recycling facilities on material recovery comparative testing. They concluded that extensive dismantling of vehicles before shredding significantly cut down on ASR, because less material enters the shredder. VW designed the Golf with this in mind, with a dashboard built for complete removal by a dismantler. To ease the recycling process for plastic recyclers, VW replaced potentially contaminating adhesives with clips and used a standardized plastic wherever possible. General Motors has also gone to plastic clips on several of its models.

Some materials degrade from wear or contamination and cannot be used for their original function. Designs that cut down on degradation reduce this problem. The BMW Group makes instrument panels out of standardized plastic to prevent degradation. These panels get broken down and re-molded back into the same instrument panels with a 99.5 percent purity.
Ford Motor Company uses a “closed loop” recycling program at one of its plants in order to prevent material contamination. They separate recovered aluminum before it gets sent to the general scrap pile to keep the aluminum out of the mix of other metals, which would degrade its value. The recovered aluminum is re-stamped into auto-body sheet metal.

The Mazda division of Ford Motor Company successfully uses a different “closed loop” recycling program. The bumper recovery program works with dealers and independent repair shops to recycle plastic bumpers. Damaged bumpers that need replacement are dropped off at local dealerships where repair shops pick up the replacement. The same truck that delivers new bumpers to the dealership takes the damaged goods away on the return trip, reducing transportation costs. Mazda strips off the paint and recycles the damaged bumpers – even into an identical bumper.

General Motors reuses post-consumer waste and automotive recycled materials in manufacturing. Radiator side baffles in the TrailBlazer and Envoy are made from 91 percent recycled material, saving 5,000 recycled tires over the model year. The front bumper of the Saturn Vue contains 40 percent post-consumer recycled material, equaling 39,000 pounds of recycled plastic in the model year. The 2004 Vue will also incorporate 959,000 pounds of post-industrial recycled material into wheel-house mounts.

Even with all of these programs as well as others not mentioned, automotive recycling remains a challenge. As pressure to recycle increases, automakers worldwide will demand that suppliers and manufacturing facilities use more recycled materials. The narrow focus will be on finding uses for recycled plastic and ASR in new vehicles and new vehicle production.¹