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

key reports highlight the importance of increased innovation in this type of technology
to meet the high recycling / recovery rate of 95% by 2015 (See Section 23.7). 513514
The benefits of recycling, over final disposal, of the waste materials arising from ELVs
can be summarised as:
441
� A reduction in GHG emissions associated with offsetting virgin materials and
avoided emissions from landfilling;
� Reduced pollution of the natural environment from hazardous substances
such as coolants and oils;
� A reduction in the marginal cost of recycling as infrastructure and efficiency
increases; and
� Reduced levels of abandoned vehicles and associated costs to the public
sector.
What factors can be used to measure the achievement of recycling rates? Firstly, it is
important to note that before a vehicle can be recycled it has to be legally scrapped.
Illegal dumping of vehicles is being reduced, in part, as a result of the use of
Certificates of Destruction (CoD) that make the last registered owner of a vehicle
responsible for it’s handling at the end of its life. However, the data regarding
scrapping rates in Europe is sparse and of low quality, and elsewhere non-existent.
The EU Directive is helping, in some respects, to provide better statistical data, but
reliable time series information is not yet available. It is likely that scrappage rates
are increasing, but it is not possible to directly relate this to the quantity of vehicles
that are actually recycled. 515 Compounding this are other factors that affect
scrappage rates such as; the average lifetime of a vehicle; vehicle sales; and the
import/export of ELVs for treatment.
To measure the success of the policies, one could use figures for the average
recycled, recovered and reused content of a vehicle. Average recycled content rates in
Japan are known to be high due to stricter targets, however, no data was found
relating to the changes in actual recycling rates over time.
The effect of the EU ELV Directive on recycling rates in Europe is unclear. In the most
up-to-date report on the Directives’ effectiveness it is concluded that although some
countries have obtained the targets early (mainly due to previous existing policies)
513 M. Fergusson and IEEP (2006) End of Life Vehicles (ELV) Directive: An assessment of the current
state of implementation by member states, Report for The European Parliament: Policy Department
Economic and Scientific Policy,
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/comparl/envi/pdf/externalexpertise/end_of_life_vehicles.pdf
514 GHK and Bio Intelligence Service (2006) A study to examine the benefits of the End of Life Vehicles
Directive and the costs and benefits of a revision of the 2015 targets for recycling, re-use and recovery
under the ELV Directive, Final Report to DG Environment, May 2006,
http://ec.europa.eu/environment/waste/pdf/study/final_report.pdf
515 Scrappage rates are the number of vehicles entering authorised treatment facilities out of the total
fleet in a country, per annum.
International Review of Waste Policy: Annexes