The Vehicle Recycling Process
Specialist Recycling Treatment Centres
In an age when we are acutely aware of preserving the environment and living sustainably where possible its no longer acceptable to throw away scrap vehicles into landfill. Instead, end of life vehicles are recycled as far as possible, so that much of the metal, plastic and many of the car parts can be re-used or made into new items.
Old and written off cars and other vehicles are no longer compacted down to a cube for dumping. They actually go through a rather lengthy and careful process of recycling at specialist Authorised Treatment Facilities (ATFs), which aim to recover 95% of the materials that make up a car for re-use and recycling.
When you call us to take away your scrap car in Wiltshire, we’ll make sure it is responsibly recycled according to environmental guidelines.
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Vehicle Depollution and Dismantling
The car recycling process starts with the draining out of all the fluids in the vehicle – petrol, oil, anti-freeze, windscreen wash, battery acid, brake and transmission fluid and the various lubricants.
The systems the fluids came from are well flushed out, and the salvaged fluids themselves are treated and purified before being responsibly disposed of.
Once the hazardous fluids are out of the way, dismantling can begin. Each component of a car is removed in order, and where possible cleaned up, re-conditioned and re-used.
Parts that can’t be re-used are removed and dismantled individually for appropriate specialist recycling – rubber, glass, plastic, fabric and non-ferrous metals for example can be rendered down and used to make new items.
Even old batteries are valuable for recycling (and in fact its illegal to send them to landfill) – they’re turned into new batteries, car parts and plasterboard components.
Vehicle Crushing and Shredding
Once the vehicle is fully stripped down to the chassis the remains are fed into a crusher to be compacted, then put through a shredder.
The shredded metals are separated into types, ready to be melted down and used again for various other purposes. There is usually some non-metal residue remaining after the shredding process, which is disposed of according to environmental guidelines.
It’s great to know that when you wave goodbye to your end-of-life vehicle as it heads off to be recycled the materials it consists of will live on. You may come across bits of your car again in the form of a new handbag, drink can, plumbing pipe, wall tiles or even chair cushions.