Vehicle Recycling, Reuse, and Recovery: Material Disposition from Current End-of-Life Vehicles

The goal of this research was to determine and quantify today's actual end-of-life vehicle disposition rates based on their age and material content. The current facts and status of today's automotive recycling industry were sought. Disposition rates and material trends were projected using adjusted ELV age data from Duranceau and Linden's 1999 research and average materials content data from open-sources. End-of-life vehicle age and population data adjustments were used to estimate representative material compositions for the US and Canadian ELV fleet. The disposition rates were broken down by percentages of (1) part weight reused, (2) part weight remanufactured, (3) part weight recycled pre-shredder, (4) weight of recovered fluids, and (5) weight of metals recycled post shredder. The 86.3% percent material recovery established in this study was compared to the 84% reported in Paul's 2001.