58.6%
Each link in the chain makes their own contribution to car recycling. Firstly, the car dismantling companies ensure that the reusable parts are safe. Then the other links in the chain, the collection companies, shredder companies and the PST plant, play their role.
Car recycling is measured as a percentage of the weight. This percentage expresses how much of the weight of a car is recovered. The car dismantling companies account for roughly a quarter of the performance (24.6 per cent). They remove the reusable parts, the engine, gearbox and other mandatory parts such as fluids, tyres and batteries, from the car.
Recovery of metals
What happens to everything left over from the end-of-life vehicle? Then the battle commences to raise the amount of reusable raw materials as far as possible. The shredder companies, in particular, are involved with recovering the various metals from the car. These metals are then sent to smelting companies, either directly or via collection companies. These are metals such as aluminium, iron, copper and other more exotic metals. The percentages shoot up in this link of the chain – it accounts for 58.6 per cent of the recycling.
To achieve that, the shredder companies pulverise entire end-of-life vehicles into shreds. The composition of these shreds varies greatly, from iron to different plastics. The coarse, light materials are sucked away and separated. A drum magnet then separates all of the materials containing iron from the remaining materials.
High-quality process
Irrespective of the amount of force involved with the shredding, it is also a high-quality process. Specialists know exactly how to adjust parameters such as suction, temperatures, pressure, dimensions of the material and the sizes of the seven filters to achieve the best results. In other words, to achieve the purest possible material flows with minimal mixtures of other materials. Copper, aluminium, iron and certain plastics come out ‘cleanest’ from the machines at the shredder companies.
Sustainable Development Goals
For the second year, ARN has submitted itself to the yardstick of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with the motto ‘lean and green’ in mind. The colored SDGs shown opposite apply specifically to the content of this page.
The final per cent
After shredding, comes last but certainly not least ARN’s contribution with its own PST plant in Tiel. This is also known as a ‘post-separation plant’. In this step of the process, the residues are split into twenty raw materials that can be used for new products. This is done using advanced Post Shredder Technology (PST). The waste is broken down into different flows using a large number of sophisticated machines and techniques. The final minerals, plastics, fibres and metals are sifted from the material flow from the shredder companies. This final link in the chain makes the following contribution: 15.2%
800,000 kilos of shredder waste
The PST plant processes over 800,000 kilos of shredder waste each week. Each year, it recycles approx. 40,000 tons of waste. 40 per cent of that waste is processed into reusable materials. The material that cannot be reused is incinerated with energy recovery. Only three per cent of the shredder waste currently ends up in the rubbish tip.
Europe: fewer heavy metals in cars
The EU has strengthened the European Directive on the use of heavy metals in cars. These changes mainly concern the various applications of lead in vehicles.
It looks like the EU will be clamping down further on lead in the coming years. In 2021, Brussels will decide whether the lead in batteries (in particular, in lead-acid starter batteries) should remain on the list of exceptions. This also applies to a number of alloys that contain lead.
The EU has been cracking down on heavy metals for a long time. Back in 2003, it banned the use of lead, mercury, cadmium and ‘hexavalent’ chrome. In 2019, far from all heavy metals have disappeared from cars. Some materials and parts are still on a list of exceptions. In the meantime, the car industry and its suppliers have found alternatives for many of these materials and parts.
ARN welcomes the reductions in heavy metals from vehicles to be recycled, as this brings fully sustainably car recycling a step closer. Incidentally, the fewer heavy metals present in the residual materials of old cars, the higher the value of the material to be recycled. It is hardly ever effective to remove small quantities of contamination due to the high costs and the small quantities of each substance.