Waste recovery of end-of-life vehicles

The waste from end-of-life vehicles can be economically reused or forwarded for disposal. The UE 2000/53/EC directive imposes a recovery rate from end-of-life vehicles on the level of 95% of their weight and a recycling rate on the level of 85%. Changes in the material structure of vehicles observed in recent years indicate a gradual replacement of ferrous metals traditionally used in the automotive industry with plastics and composites, which mainly results from the need to reduce the vehicle weight, fuel consumption and CO₂ emission. Hence, the share of recyclable materials diminishes and the share of materials difficult (thus expensive) to recycle increases. The paper presents problems related to the recovery of materials from end-of-life vehicles. It presents the methods of waste management and identifies relations between the changes in the material structure and the recyclability of end-of-life vehicles. The paper also presents a comparison of the recovery rates possible to obtain using the best available technologies and the actual recovery rates from the recycling networks.