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.