16

Solid and

Hazardous Waste

REUSING AND RECYCLING OLD AUTOMOBILES

I

n the United States, about 35 million motor vehicles leave

service each year out of roughly 250 million in

use (see graph). Most are exported to developing countries,

but about 11 million cars and trucks are discarded (see photo

of a Virginia salvage yard). Although 75 percent of a car can

be reused as secondhand parts or recycled, the remaining

25 percent—glass, metals, plastics, fabrics, rubber, foam,

and leather—usually ends up in landfills. Economics is an

important aspect of the problem, because companies must

make money as they reuse and recycle auto components.

About 37 percent of the iron and steel scrap

reprocessed in the United States comes from old cars.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency,

recycling scrap iron and steel produces 86 percent less air

pollution and 76 percent less water pollution than mining

and refining an equivalent amount of iron ore.

Recycling plastic, which automakers use because it

is lightweight and improves fuel efficiency, is one of the

biggest challenges in auto recycling. No industry standards

currently exist for plastic parts, so the kinds and amounts

used in cars vary a great deal. As many as 15 plastics

comprise some dashboards, and because many of these

plastics are chemically incompatible, they cannot be melted

together for recycling.

Auto manufacturers around the world have begun

to address the challenge of reusing and recycling old

cars. Japan and the European Union have mandated

that by 2015, 95 percent of each discarded car must

be recoverable. Toyota has developed a way to recover

urethane foam and other shredded materials to make

soundproofing material. Honda, Mercedes-Benz, Peugeot,

Toyota, Volkswagen, Volvo, and other auto manufacturers

design cars so that major components from old authomobiles;

can be reused in new vehicles. Other parts are designed

such that they can be separated and recycled (see inset of

recyclable plastic and composite parts on a Toyota vehicle).

While reusing parts and recycling materials reduce

waste, a more sustainable strategy is to reduce reliance on

automobiles. Shifting to public transit, reducing trip lengths

and frequency, and other behavioral changes decrease the

need to dispose of old automobiles.