You’ve traded in your old car for a newer, more fuel efficient model. Your new car has a smaller carbon footprint, and you’re helping the environment even further by having your old car recycled. However, over 4 million tons of car shredder waste finds its way into landfills each year; the debris includes everything from glass to rubber and plastic, and it makes up 25% of the non-recyclable weight of an automobile.
This material can actually be recycled, thanks to a partnership between Junk Dealers Ft. Collins, USCAR, the American Chemistry Council and the Argonne National Laboratory. Below, you will learn more about how car recycling works.
Cutting Out the Fluff
When a car goes through the shredder, metals such as steel and aluminum are removed. The materials left over are called ‘fluff’, which can include too-small-to-detect pieces of metal. The average automobile is 65% steel, and much of it is recyclable, but the majority of your old car’s plastic parts (such as the bumper, dashboard, carpeting and seat belts) will end up as shredder waste. Most landfills use fluff as a cover to keep trash from blowing away, and it can also be used as fuel or turned into new materials.
Involvement in the Recycling of Shredder Waste
Research into fluff recycling has been in progress for over fifteen years, in a cooperative arrangement between the private and public sectors. The participants are:
* The American Chemistry Council: Its plastics division’s focus is on demonstrating the sustainability of plastics over the lifespan of a vehicle.
* The Argonne National Laboratory: The research center’s Illinois separation plant can take fluff through a mechanical separation and recovery process to remove specific plastics.
* The USCAR: Membership includes the three major American automakers: Chrysler, Ford and GM.
The partnership’s goal is to advance plastic recycling technology as it pertains to automobiles. To be successful,Junk Dealers> Ft. Collins must contend with all the different materials produced in the auto recycling process; the key issue with the process is the justification of the additional cost of material recovery by balancing those costs with the revenue generated by creation of usable but recycled materials.