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ELV – what do you get back?
Metals
Metals are still by far the biggest proportion of material used in vehicles and all but 2% is currently recovered, but the recycling job has been made harder by greater use of lighter, corrosion resistant materials such as plastics in the search for fuel-efficient designs.
Plastics
Plastics account for at least 10% by vehicle weight, a rise of just 1.5% since 1984 but actually more significant due to the increased lightness and efficiency of the material.
Plastics use in car production is tipped to soar over the next few years yet the current proportion being recycled is low, largely due to the many different types used.
Technology for effective identification at production stage and improved sorting at end of life are vital if the position is to improve.
Of plastics currently recycled from vehicles, battery cases account for more than a third of the 15,000 tonnes recovered every year, but a further 120,000 tonnes of vehicles plastics is simply written off to landfill.
Tyres
Old tyres are fast becoming one of the UK’s biggest environmental problems, especially as what we all perceive as ‘rubber’ is now a complex mix of materials built upon a structure of steel and textiles.
This cocktail makes it difficult to recycle tyres, but they also cause instability in landfill sites that hampers future redevelopment or reclamation of the land.
The explosion in the number of waste tyres has been made worse by the increasing availability of budget tyres, often from the Far East, which have reduced the business gained from recycling car tyres by 'retreading', though this practice is still common for heavy vehicles.
A tyre recycling process known as ‘grinding’ could be the answer to the UK tyre mountain. This produces a material known as ‘Crumb’, available in various sizes and used for sports and playing surfaces, brake linings, mulch for landscaping, carpet underlay and even shoe soles.
Crumb has also been mixed with asphalt to extend the life and durability of road surfaces.
Tyres can be burned to create energy too. The emissions controls can be demanding, though a procedure known as ‘pyrolysis’ is now being piloted.
Oils
Waste oil from cars, whether mishandled by motorists themselves or uncaring scrap operators is another concern; half of the oil removed from cars or some 10,000 tonnes a year may be finding its way into sewers and water courses and just one litre can contaminate one million litres of water or damage the fertility of a wide area of soil.
Much oil is wasted when old engine oil filters are discarded, yet this can be easily recovered using a special press, with the metal filter case then sent for metal recycling.
Waste oil is potentially one of the most useful by products from vehicle recycling. Some is currently burnt in power stations and can also be refined and re-used as a lubricant.
Catalytic converters
Commonly called ‘cats’, these contain valuable and recoverable platinum, rhodium and palladium, with the casing going for recycled steel.
Batteries
Recycling of car batteries is now more than 90%, but the small proportion left over still pose a major environmental risk.
Airbags
Airbags may be major lifesavers, but there are no currently viable methods or uses for recycling them.
Glass
Though the nation has been converted to bottle banks, much of the glass in cars used to carry ‘empties’ to supermarkets or the tip is simply being buried in the ground. Glass accounts for 3% of vehicle weight but is virtually worthless, so most of the UK’s estimated 55,000 tonnes generated each year goes to landfill. Toughened glass can be shattered and easily removed from vehicles, but laminated glass used in windscreens has to be removed by hand.
What's it all about?
LKM's view
See LKM's ELV web site – www.car-scrap.co.uk
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