Car recycling involves dismantling vehicles and taking advantage of any working component before shredding the metal frame and sending it for proper reuse.
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Car recycling is one of the biggest industries across the globe. As a result, plenty of companies are working on crushing vehicles and taking advantage of crushed metal and other components.
Aside from being a big economic driver, car recycling is more about protecting the environment and reducing the volume of waste globally. Thus, instead of wasting nonrenewable resources, comanies take advantage of the pre-used vehicle's materials and use them to create newer vehicles or for any other purposes.
This article provides you with all that you need to know about car recycling. It highlights what exactly happens to vehicles when they're recycled and where the material can be used. Finally, it covers some of the main benefits of car recycling.
What is car recycling?
Since vehicles are not designed to last forever, they must go somewhere without harming the environment once they reach the end of their lifetime. So first, the process of dismantling vehicles into smaller parts it's called car recycling.
Some people refer to car recycling as auto dismantling, wrecking yards, car spare parts suppliers, or vehicle recycling.
Car recycling does not necessarily mean that the entire vehicle will be thrown away. Instead, vehicles are scanned in detail for any working component that other people might benefit from.
What are the main benefits of car recycling?
Car recycling industries grew significantly within the last couple of years. When recycling vehicles at a large scale, people gain a lot of benefits, including:
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Protecting the environment
Vehicles contain a lot of complete material, and some of these materials can be hazardous to the environment. For example, all vehicle fluid should not be disposed of or dumped into the waterways or even the settlement. This is because it can harm living creatures and could pose further harm to humans.
Thus, when recycling a vehicle, every component is disposed of in a certain way that doesn't impact the environment. Recycling vehicles have a legal component, and it's prohibited to dispose of any harmful fluid or other material to the environment.
Aside from contaminated materials, the car recycling idea helps the environment indirectly. When people take advantage of previously processed vehicles, they don't necessarily have to use nonrenewable resources like metal or fuel to generate them. Thus, car recycling helps save on processing time and effort while reducing total waste in a certain country.
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Enhance the economy
The car recycling industry opened the doors to improve and enhance the economy significantly. Aside from making money from the recycling process itself, this industry serves as the primary job for thousands of employees across the globe.
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Provide cheap car parts replacements
Before the vehicle gets recycled, technicians and employees scan it for any potential working components. Therefore, when recycling a car, many people take advantage of purchasing used parts that could have very high demand around certain cities.
How does the car recycling process work?
In the United States alone, about 13 million vehicles are recycled every year. To serve this huge demand of car recycling, most recycling yards perform in certain steps to reuse every component of any car, SUV, truck, motorcycle, etc.
While recycling yards might have more specified steps, here's the general procedure for how car recycling work:
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Drain all fluids or depollution
As we indicated before, fluids in any vehicle contained many contaminants and pollution that should not be disposed to the environment. Therefore, the first step in car recycling involves draining these fluids into individual containers and dispose them properly into certain landfills that accept this type of waste.
Usually, these landfills dispose of these contaminated floors in a certain way that does not cause any harm to the environment, whether through waterways, air, or sediments.
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Take advantage of usable components or dismantling
Before the vehicle is crushed, car recycling yards scan the vehicle and investigate any active components. For example, they might take advantage of the car seats, tires, doors, or any internal components that might be in good condition.
Keep in mind that if you're selling your car to a car recycling yard, they won't pay you for these components, and that's why we always recommend that you take these parts away and sell them separately to make extra cash, even if it's not going to be a lot. Also, keep in mind that taking apart these functional components should be done in a certain way that does not cause any harm to the environment and, at the same time, does not damage the component while you’re taking it out.
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Remove any nonmetal component
Once all active components are taken out, the core recycling company removes any nonmetal components, even those not in good condition. So, for example, they take away the seating, any plastic, the batteries, etc.
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Separate the ferrous and nonferrous metals or destruction
Once the vehicle is just scrap metal, the car recycling company would put it in a certain shredder responsible for separating medals into 2 main categories: ferrous and nonferrous metals.
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Strengthen the metal by combining it
After separating the different metal types, car recycling companies usually combine the metals and create stronger mixtures than the particular individual metal types.
Once these combined or mixed metals are prepared, they are sent to different manufacturers to be used. According to statistics in 2014, about 14 million tons of steel are generated annually from car recycling yards and used to produce new vehicles. But, of course, this number increased significantly in the coming years.
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Send combined metal to manufacturers
The last step in the car recycling process involves sending the mixed combined metal to the manufacturers to produce new vehicles' lines. Keep in mind that recycled metal is much cheaper for different automakers to purchase a brand new metal. Thus, the process does not only help the environment, the workers but also helps the manufacturers save a ton of money every year.
How much of the average car is recyclable?
Interestingly, according to automotive experts, about 95% of every vehicle should be recyclable or reusable. Even a couple of years earlier, about 85% of the vehicles were also reusable or recyclable. Thus, the whole intent of new car design is moving towards more recycling and less waste. Therefore, you'll see a lot of modern vehicles are more recyclable than older ones.
How many cars get crushed?
According to recent statistics, about 12 to 15 million cars are crushed every year in the United States only and turned into recyclable material. This number is huge compared to previous years, which means that the United States is focusing a lot on reducing the amount of waste from automobiles by encouraging car recycling across every state.
Common facts about car recycling
If you are interested in more details about car recycling, here are some of the interesting facts that we came across while doing our research about this topic:
- The car recycling industry is not new, and it's been there for 75 years.
- Car recycling serves as one of the biggest recycling industries across the globe.
- Car recycling companies are not large businesses; they are small businesses that do not have more than ten people employed.
- Since car recycling did not only benefit the environment, it helped a ton in improving the economy. According to recent statistics, the car recycling industry serves as number 16 in the largest industries in the United States. This industry thrives the national GDP by contributing about $25 billion every year. Furthermore, employees working in the car recycling industries gain about 25,000 billion dollars as well, where this industry employs about 100,000 employees.
- With a huge volume of recycled vehicles in the United States and Canada, the core recycling industry can provide enough steel to produce about 13 million vehicles every year.
- With car recycling, North America alone was able to save about 85 million oil barrels every year.
What Car parts can be reused?
There are many car parts that you can make some extra money from before sending your vehicle to the recycling yard. Let's take a closer look below:
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The vehicle’s tires
If your vehicle's tires are in good condition, you can make up to $75 for each tire if you find the right buyer. You can sell them to either shop that sells used tires or probably post them on Craigslist.
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The windshield and glass
Don't underestimate the value of your vehicle's windshield. You can sell them separately and get up to $100 for the windshield only. Also, if the windshield is in good condition and doesn't have any cracks, all it takes you is to have someone experienced in taking it out and posted on Craigslist or sell it to any local auto shop.
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The catalytic converter
The catalytic converter is one of the most expensive components in your vehicle because it contains precious metals like Palladium, rhodium, and platinum hear it. The cheapest you can get from selling the catalytic converter is about $150. However, in some vehicles, you can get up to $1000 if the catalytic converter is in good condition.
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The alternator
The alternator is one of those components that you must install a new one when it goes bad. Therefore, you'll find plenty of people who are looking for used alternators in good condition. In addition, by selling the alternator separately, you can get up to $150.
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The starter
Like the alternator, the starter is one of those components that you'll find a lot of demand around your area, especially if your vehicle is very popular. Of course, you won't get rich by selling the starter, but you can get up to $50.
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Some of the reusable parts
Within your vehicle, there are plenty of nonmetal components that you can take advantage of. For example, anything around the dashboard or probably the cup holders can be sold separately. Although there is no specific number for how much you can get for some of these parts, you might get an idea by checking on Craigslist for someone else posting a similar component.
Conclusion
Car recycling is one of the biggest industries that improved the economy over the last couple of decades. Automakers don't have to purchase brand new medals every time they want to produce a new line every year with car recycling.
During the car recycling process, engine fluids are first removed and disposed of in a certain procedure; then, the vehicle is scanned for any working component sold as parts replacement. After that, any nonmetal component is also removed before shredding the metal frame and strengthening the metals by combining them. Finally, the combined metal is sent to manufacturers to use in the production of their new vehicles.
If you have an old car that you don't want to keep sitting in your driveway and would like to participate and the car recycling industry, we advise you to reach out to Cash Cars Buyer who can remove your vehicle in no time and sell it to the right agency that disposes of this vehicle properly without harming the environment.
Cash Cars Buyer is one of the top-rated car removal companies in the nation that guarantees to pay you the top dollars and will provide you with free towing despite your living location around the United States.
Our process is very straightforward and doesn't take more than a couple of days to get your car removed safely and for the most money.
All it takes you is to:
- Describe your car’s type and condition
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