Today is the World Environment Day, a date dedicated to raising awareness among the world population about the importance of conserving and protecting our ecosystems, as well as promoting respect for the environment. While it is true that as drivers we still have a long way to go towards sustainable mobility, we can do our bit to offset the pollution we generate. For example, with the recycling of your car.
How to recycle your car
Recycling your car is obviously not as simple as going to a clean point and leaving it parked there. When a car has entered the end of its useful life, either after an accident, due to irreparable (or very expensive) breakdowns or simply because we have changed vehicles, it is a great time to think further.
Thanks to the waste management and the recycling of our car, we can reuse all the elements that can be taken advantage of, and manage all those that have to be discarded in a more sustainable way and with less environmental impact. Vehicles form a very important part of the use if the aim is to reduce the environmental impact.
Vehicles at the end of their useful life, referred to by the initials VFU (vehicle out of use), they must follow a certain process that will be the one that will allow them to decontaminate it, take advantage of the pieces, reuse the materials and get rid of their waste in the most sustainable and safe way at an environmental level. To do this, you must be referred to an authorized treatment center, known by the acronym CAT.
How waste management works
Vehicles have a high percentage of materials and elements that can be recycledwhich means that the process will make it possible to take advantage of that vehicle again through a transformation and use of specific elements.
Once an end-of-use vehicle arrives at a CAT, a process begins that we can summarize as follows:
- The deregistration of the vehicle is managed
- He proceeds to his decontaminationincluding liquids, batteries, tires, glass, and other polluting elements.
- They separate the liquids, parts, scrap and plastics. Liquids must be sent to a hazardous waste manager for proper treatment and disposal. The parts: that can be reused, will be prepared for sale as second-hand car parts, while those that can no longer be repaired are sent to a company that is dedicated to fragmentation for subsequent recycling. The scrap will be transported to a shredder with the aim of recycling it and the plastics, in the case of polymers, will go directly to landfills, while the monomers will be recycled.
- Also, there may be other materials to recyclesuch as glass, iron, other metals and even tires.
Once the vehicle has been fully managed, we can find three possibilities:
- Recyclable materials: they will be allocated to the different industries for their new transformation, thus being able to be reused.
- non-recyclable materials: in this case, the materials will be directed to a plant through which we will safely dispose of them, preventing them from contaminating in the future.
- reusable parts: they are scrap parts that car owners can buy at a much cheaper price and with the maximum guarantees.