Recycling end-of-life vehicles: suggestions for the future
The recycling and reuse of end-of-life vehicles in Italy and Europe is a priority issue, just think that in Europe the automotive industry generates about 11 million tons of waste.
While in our country the end-of-life vehicles are about 1 million. Always taking a look at European data, the highest percentage of end-of-life vehicles is destined for recycling and reuse, the remaining part for recovery.
As already seen in a previous article (you can read it here in full), as far as reuse and recycling are concerned, Italy is in line with European trends, with a percentage equal to 87.4% of the average vehicle weight. On the other hand, in terms of total recovery, we are about 10 percentage points lower than European standards. The end-of-life vehicles management, is a responsibility of the Italian car manufacturers, about 1450. In Rome alone, for example, we find 80 officially active junkyards. The sector is going through a period of profound changes also in view of the Ecological Transition challenge , which will cost adjustments, starting from the machinery used. Ecotecnica Europe produces state-of-the-art presses for the recycling of ferrous and non-ferrous metals, developing machinery with low consumption and environmental impact that allow our customers to take advantage of state benefits and incentives.
The suggestions of the AIRA report
If we come back to the challenges of the sector, the Foundation for Sustainable Development and the Industrial Association of Auto Recyclers (AIRA), proposes a series of solutions that can lead junkyards towards the achievement of EU objectives.
AIRA proposes to introduce in Italy a regulation on the of end-of-life vehicles recycling with the EPR regime, extended producer responsibility, able to respond to the principles of responsibility contained in the directive. In Europe, in line with the actions and measures aimed at promoting the circular economy, it has been talked about the principle of producer responsibility for years, but it seems that each State acts arbitrarily.
The Foundation stresses the need to effectively track treatment performance for car manufacturers and to combat exports of used vehicles for the sole purpose of reducing tax obligations.
In addition, a customised recycling regulation is required, according to the fraction of material and new investments in support of research and plant innovations, which also reduce the gap among our country’s areas . Finally, it calls for the regulation application to end-of-life vehicles which have hitherto been excluded, such as lorries weighing more than 3.5 tonnes and motorcycles.
The proposition, in general, is to make the Italian legislation more uniform to the European one. Are you interested in deepening these topics? Continue reading our blog, full of interesting ideas.
