International Review of Waste Management Policy - Department of ...

23.0 Producer Responsibility, ELVs - International
23.1 Outline of Policy
End of Life Vehicle (ELV) policies have the general aim to reduce the environmental
impacts associated with vehicles that have come to the end of their life, through
mechanical failures, accident or other economic factors. They explicitly aim to
increase the quantity of vehicles legally scrapped, increase the recovery rates of
materials from those vehicles, reduce the impact of hazardous materials by enforcing
depollution standards at authorised treatment facilities (ATF), and promote innovation
in vehicle design in order to make components eminently more recyclable.
In essence, the structures of the policies are based on producer responsibility; hence
the vehicle manufacturers finance the cost of treatment net of revenue from the sale
of recycled materials. However, the costs of some systems are financed directly by
levies imposed on the consumer at the point of sale of all new vehicles.
The main driver behind the policy in the EU, for example, was the level of waste
generated from ELVs and disposed of in landfill, and the need to reduce the
associated environmental impacts. Alternatively, in countries like Japan and Korea,
the policy has been developed to both implement ideals of ‘shared responsibility’ but
also to ensure that cars produced in those countries maintain international approval
by complying with the tough standards set out in the EU ELV Directive. This Directive
appears to be the most substantial and recognised around the globe, and one that
other international policies aspire to, both in terms of purpose, and specific recovery
rates.
Many policies are developed so that there is zero cost to the final owner of the
vehicle. Free take back of vehicles is a key element to ensuring that ELVs are not
abandoned when the cost of recovery is high. This is, in part, driven by the value of
metals in the recycling markets. When the value of recycled metals is low the systems
implemented by the policies will fund the continued operation of the ATFs that have
been set up to manage the recycling and recovery of ELVs. If this system was not in
place and the final owner had to ‘foot the bill’ one would see a sharp increase in
abandoned vehicles that would be directly related to peoples’ willingness (or
unwillingness in this case) to pay for the final disposal of their vehicle.
In the EU the EC has evaluated the effectiveness of the EU ELV Directive and found
that, notwithstanding the variation in compliance with the Directive across member
states, the policy has substantial environmental and economic benefits associated
with the increased recycling and recovery of materials from ELVs, in addition high
targets increase recycling and promote investment in eco-innovation to further
increase marginal recycling rates, mainly through innovations in post-shredder
technologies that mechanically sort additional materials from the automotive
shredder residue (ASR).
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International Review of Waste Policy: Annexes