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What’s it all about?
Like other EU members, the UK is now legally bound by the European Union End of Life Vehicles (ELV) Directive to ensure that only authorised dismantlers handle ELVs.
In addition, vehicle manufacturers must:
- Take back, free of charge, any new vehicle registered in the UK after 2002 once it reaches the end of its life
- Do the same from 2007 onwards, for any vehicle arriving on the market before 2002
- Restrict use of heavy metals in vehicles from July 2003
- Ensure that at least 85% of vehicles are reused or recovered and at least 80% reused or recycled from 2006, increasing to 95% reused or recovered and 85% reused or recycled by 2015.
Dismantlers must also ‘de-pollute’ any vehicle before recycling by removal of all petrol, diesel, brake fluid, engine oil, antifreeze, batteries, airbags, mercury-bearing components and catalysts.
Why is it important?
Around 30 million vehicles are on UK roads with some two million joining the ‘fleet’ every year, while a similar number go for scrap after a life averaging some 13 years.
Vehicle recycling is more efficient than for any other consumer product, with some 80% of waste recovered. The rest – mostly plastics, rubber, glass, dirt, carpet fibres and seat foam – goes mainly to landfill.
LKM's view
ELV - what do you get back?
In January 2006, the Environment Agency issued a license enabling LKM to begin trading as an Authorised Treatment Facility (ATF), and with the purchasing the very latest state-of-the-art equipment enabling LKM to de-pollute up to 60 cars a day.
See LKM's ELV web site – www.car-scrap.co.uk
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