Recycling the Family Clunker
Automobile end-of-life dismantling and recycling is a major business. Recycle, Renew, Reuse are buzzwords used to promote the recovery and salvage of items that still have value. Auto recycling is $22 billion per year industry in the United States. The term auto recycling includes recycled auto parts for both domestic, and depending on the part, foreign buyers and using the remaining auto shell as food for both the crusher and steel mill fodder. Auto recycling yards also known as salvage yards or junk yards provide necessary parts to keep more autos from being junked or abandoned. A typical vehicle has 64% ferrous metal, 9% non-ferrous metal, 9% in various plastics, 5% fluids and 13% of other, non-classified …show more content…
This $3 billion dollar stimulus effort to raise miles per gallon averages for the US fleet of cars and trucks. A side effect was supposed to be helping to stimulate auto sales. The program lasted less than two months, from July 1, 2009 until August 24, 2009. The government supplemented the original $3 billion with another $2 billion to fund the program. (Wikipedia, 2015) This program had various unintended consequences. The number of cars sold in this two month period was more than the number sold in the seven months after the program ended. Charities reported a sharp drop in donated vehicles. A lot of auto recyclers refused to play a part in the scrapping effort due to the fact that the engines had to be destroyed to prevent the total vehicle from being resold or just the engine itself to be sold in working order. And last but not least…legislators hoping for a dramatic rise in the average mph for the new vehicles were disappointed to find that the consumer, even with the gas crisis and economic showdown in 2008 was going for vehicles that gave only 1-3 mpg better fuel mileage than the vehicle being traded. (Wikipedia,
Automobile end-of-life dismantling and recycling is a major business. Recycle, Renew, Reuse are buzzwords used to promote the recovery and salvage of items that still have value. Auto recycling is $22 billion per year industry in the United States. The term auto recycling includes recycled auto parts for both domestic, and depending on the part, foreign buyers and using the remaining auto shell as food for both the crusher and steel mill fodder. Auto recycling yards also known as salvage yards or junk yards provide necessary parts to keep more autos from being junked or abandoned. A typical vehicle has 64% ferrous metal, 9% non-ferrous metal, 9% in various plastics, 5% fluids and 13% of other, non-classified …show more content…
This $3 billion dollar stimulus effort to raise miles per gallon averages for the US fleet of cars and trucks. A side effect was supposed to be helping to stimulate auto sales. The program lasted less than two months, from July 1, 2009 until August 24, 2009. The government supplemented the original $3 billion with another $2 billion to fund the program. (Wikipedia, 2015) This program had various unintended consequences. The number of cars sold in this two month period was more than the number sold in the seven months after the program ended. Charities reported a sharp drop in donated vehicles. A lot of auto recyclers refused to play a part in the scrapping effort due to the fact that the engines had to be destroyed to prevent the total vehicle from being resold or just the engine itself to be sold in working order. And last but not least…legislators hoping for a dramatic rise in the average mph for the new vehicles were disappointed to find that the consumer, even with the gas crisis and economic showdown in 2008 was going for vehicles that gave only 1-3 mpg better fuel mileage than the vehicle being traded. (Wikipedia,