Automotive Industry Trends
March 2006
End of Life, or Not
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Earlier this year, the first target deadline went into force for the European Union’s End of Life Vehicles directive. The legislation imposes restrictions on lead, cadmium, mercury, and hexavalent chromium in vehicles manufactured for sale in EU member states and sets mandatory recycling targets of 85 percent recyclable components this year and 95 percent by 2015. Car makers responded with a heavy-metals phase-out and by creating the International Materials Data System (IMDS) Work Group to establish uniform protocols for requesting and reporting materials information among tiers of suppliers. Relatively few U.S.-made automobiles are exported to the EU, but each of the big three American car makers has vital ties to that market through their European divisions.
The U.S. auto industry has a long history of recycling vehicles at the end of their useful lives. Roughly 15 million cars and trucks are scrapped each year, and 95 percent of them go through the recycling process. The result is that about 75 percent of vehicle weight is reclaimed, netting, for example, an annual average of more than 14 million tons of scrap steel. There is not yet a U.S. equivalent to the EU directive. U.S. car makers would like to set and progress toward recycling goals without the threat of legal teeth. To that end, industry and government formed a coalition to increase recycling levels in the United States. The Vehicle Recycling Partnership includes members from the big three auto makers (GM, Ford, and DaimlerChrysler, who work together as the U.S. Council for Automotive Research), the Department of Energy, and the American Plastics Council. In an effort to keep that last 25 percent of vehicle material out of landfills, the Partnership set up a pilot recycling plant at the Argonne National Laboratories.
At the recycling plant, engineers work to reclaim the nonmetallic part of automobiles that usually goes to waste. It’s called Automotive Shredder Residue (ASR), also known as “fluff.” Approximately 2 billion pounds of fluff is hauled to landfills every year. Fortunately, much of it can be broken down and reused. Plastics, polyurethane foam, glass, rubber, and other bits and pieces can be separated and salvaged for use in new vehicles. The Partnership team is developing effective separation technologies for mixed materials and initiating efforts to remove substances of concern from the ASR. Another development underway is guidance for preferred practices that will be useful as more commercial recycling plants adopt the technologies.
As industry attempts to drive recycling levels toward 100 percent, recyclability shapes the design of tomorrow’s vehicles. As the auto industry continues toward green vehicle concepts, the use of recyclable or environmentally harmless biomaterials is becoming more appealing than ever. An environmentally friendly future presents the opportunity to replace synthetics with natural materials. Ford’s Model U concept car offers several examples:
- corn-based tire fillers
- corn-based compostable fiber sunroofs
- sunflower seed engine oil
- soy-based seat foam
This century may see dozens of uses in automobiles for biomaterials, from canola oil to hemp to soy-based resins. These substances may be less expensive to acquire and easier to dispose of through composting or to recycle and reuse. And their incorporation into green vehicles will give manufacturers the additional competitive advantage of meeting consumers’ desire for eco-conscious products. So perhaps, the end of life is not to be the end after all. The future of vehicles may be more like reincarnation, returning to the wheel of life again and again.
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