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was available. Potential investors are unwilling to
commit their money because there is no guaranteed
supply of ELVs and therefore ASR.

Over the past decade, there has been a decline in
the number of cars available for processing thanks
to the legal – and illegal – export of obsolete vehicles
from the EU, the USA and Japan to countries will-
ing to pay high prices to provide ELVs with a second
life. Several shredder operators confirmed to
Recycling International in Munich that ELVs now
make up only a small proportion of the materials
flowing into their facilities.

The Holy Grail of ASR recycling, according to the
majority of the delegates, involves thermal treat-
ment but EU authorities are not willing – at least,
not yet – to accept this method as a form of ‘recovery’.

Roger Burri, Chairman of the IARC, observed: ‘I
believe if we are allowed to count thermal treatment
– for instance, to generate electricity – as a way to
recover ASR material, we will not have any problem
in reaching that 95% target.’ He also blamed several
EU countries for still allowing the dumping of ASR,
which is cheaper than sustainable treatment. This
makes it harder – and expensive – to develop new
waste-to-energy technologies and projects.

At last year’s IARC in Amsterdam, the European
federation of waste to energy plants CEWEP stated
that every waste-to-energy plant in Europe was
‘technically’ capable of incinerating ASR without
major problem, so long as the ASR was well mixed
with coarser waste and did not exceed a concentra-
tion of 10% of the plant’s waste input.

Recent studies

ELV legislation makes car manufacturers respon-
sible for the proper disposal of their cars. In Europe,
many manufacturers have taken action to comply
with the ELV directive, such as through the devel-
opment of their own take-back-systems. Recently,
French car manufacturer Renault announced the
establishment of a car recycling initiative in co-oper-
ation with waste management giant Suez and car
dismantler Indra, both also from France (see box).

At the IARC, several vehicle manufacturers and
also car recycling organisations presented the
results of recent recycling studies. According to
keynote speaker Rolf Willeke, a study conducted by
the WKA grouping of German car recyclers
achieved 87% recycling by weight. A total of 396
ELVs (average empty weight 837 kg) were expertly
drained, pre-processed and partially dismantled at
three state-of-the-art dismantling facilities. The
vehicle bodies were then passed to a shredder plant.
Every element of a vehicle – including fluids, com-
ponents and shredder fractions – was documented
and weighed individually. The entire experiment
was supported and evaluated by German research
institute TÜV.

According to the WKA, the results facilitate the
determination of recycling quotas in general by set-
ting verified constants, as well as fixing the metal
content for calculating recycling quotas at 75%.

BMW and Fiat

The BMW Group, also from Germany, carried out
a large-scale trial involving 501 prototypes during
2007 in order to obtain detailed information about
the ‘whole recycling process’ relating to their BMW
and Mini vehicles and compliance with legal
requirements. In co-operation with metals proces-
sor Scholz AG from Germany and plastics recycler
Galloo from France, the car manufacturer says it
was able to reclaim nearly all of the metal content
which was separated immediately after processing
or after further treatment of composites into recy-
clable metal products.

The experiment shows
that 92.08% was reused,
recycled and recovered.
With respect to the total
vehicle kerb weight
according to the ELV reg-
ulations, 97.59% reuse,
recycling and recovery
was achieved, with reuse
and recycling amounting
to 87.32%. Taking into

C A R R E C Y C L I N G

Recycling International • April 2008 33

Newly elected Chairman of the IARC congress,
Professor Wijnand Dalmijn of Delft University
of Technology in the Netherlands.

A record number of 222 delegates attended
the three day gathering in Munich.

RI_028 (IARC) Car recycling:Opmaak 1 04-04-2008 08:50 Pagina 33