Automotive Industry Trends

Automotive Shredder Residue: The final mile in automotive recycling

Government regulations, both in the US and elsewhere around the globe, challenge automakers to make greater strides in recycling end-of-life vehicles. Automotive Shredder Residue, also called fluff, poses difficulties in their quest to separate and reuse materials.

Automotive Shredder Residue, or ASR, is what’s left after auto shredders remove the metal, reusable parts, ferrous and non-ferrous materials from a vehicle. ASR materials contain plastics, polyurethane foam, fluids and oxides. ASR comprises 25 percent of every vehicle, which means that a lot of materials end up in the solid waste stream. Every year in the United States alone, auto shredders generate about 5 million tons of ASR, most of which gets disposed in solid waste landfills. Developments over the past ten years have only now made it possible to separate and reuse this waste material.

Plastics make up 12 – 15 percent of a vehicle’s weight, and almost half of ASR. Technology currently exists to separate various types of automotive plastics to a purity of 99 percent, but it is not yet economical to do so. However, it is economical to separate about 80 percent of the plastics found in vehicles. These plastics – Polypropolene (PP), filled or High-Impact Polypropolene (HIPS) and Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) -- are used in bumpers, dashboards and other components and soundproofing insulation. Theoretically, it is possible to recycle plastics over and over again without causing any change to their properties. Plastics do lose their properties if they undergo overheating during molding, use or recycling. A completely separated plastic that has not degraded is usable in its original function. If contaminated with other materials that can not be separated, then plastic loses its properties. This kind of contamination is the exception.

How do recyclers decide what materials to recycle into what parts? According to Ronald Kobler, President of plastics recycler Recovery Plastics International, the desired function of a plastic determines what plastic is chosen. As an example, HIPS contains other additives that change its stiffness, which could make it unsuitable for a headlight bezzle. However, the resulting recycled material may be suitable for another nearby product, such as headlight housings.

Efforts to push forward with ASR recycling are growing with automakers and recycling companies. Most automakers choose to work with independent processing facilities to recover materials, though Nissan operates an in-house plant for research purposes.
Toyota Motor Corporation opened the world's first mass-production ASR recycling plant in 1998. By 2003, Toyota developed capabilities to process 30,000 tons of ASR. They plan to raise that capability to 560,000 tons annually in 2005. Today, Toyota's vehicles are 85 percent recyclable. As their ASR sophistication grows, that percentage will rise.

Chicago-based Argonne National Laboratory, one of the nation’s leading science and research laboratories, developed ASR processing technology that is now licensed to Salyp N.V. Salyp utilizes its own technology, combined with the processing technology developed at Argonne as well as other research facilities in Germany and Austria. Salyp’s full scale ASR recovery plant in Belgium separates ASR materials to a purity suitable for recycling on a large scale. The abilities of this plant include separating iron oxide (for use in concrete) and recovering foam (used for carpet padding).

DaimlerChrysler, in a previous arrangement with Recovery Plastics International (RPI), demonstrated how to economically separate plastics and re-mold them into usable car parts. RPI used a technique called skin flotation to remove plastics from the waste. The technique uses a chemical solution that attaches air bubbles to plastic, causing it to float.

Some companies, such as California based MBA Polymers, focus solely on recovering only plastics from ASR. They process ASR along with electronics, consumer items and durable goods rich in plastic at a demonstration plant in Richmond, California. The processing technique they use depends on the incoming material; however, all recycled plastic leaves the plant in the form of small pellets. MBA plans to build a much larger facility in China next year.

Interest and involvement with ASR seems to depend on regulatory influence. The United States has less stringent environmental and recycling regulations. The result is that ASR receives greater attention in Japan and the European Union than in the United States. It is also the likely reason why no large scale ASR-exclusive plants exist in the United States. The need to process ASR is a reality for car makers who sell cars globally. Eventually, the US will likely add regulations that require greater percentages of recycling. US automakers will likely benefit from the advances being made today.¹

¹Resources:
Ford Motor Corp:http://www.ford.com/en/goodWorks/environment/recycling/vehicleRecycling.htm

Cardone (Parts remanufacturer) www.cardone.com http://www.cardone.com/English/Club/Corporate/ceo1.asp

Toyota Motor Corp. www.toyota.com
http://www.toyota.com/about/environment/index.html

MBA Polymers (Plastics recycler) www.mbapolymers.com

Recovery Plastics International (RPI) Interview with Ronald Kobler, President http://www.autoalliance.org/recycling_facts.htm

Salyp N.V. (ASR recycler) www.salyp.com
http://www.stud.uni-siegen.de/dirk.kaiser/firstpage.htm

Nissan Motors www.nissan.co.jp/INFO/RECYCLE/E/ http://www.nissan-global.com/EN/STORY/0,1299,SI9-CH180-LO3-TI974-CI731-IFY-MC109,00.html

CARE (Consortium for Automotive Recycling) www.caregroup.org.uk/ Automotive Industries _Recycling ASR_ May 2002 JOM _ELV Recycling in the EU_ August 2003