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

Government in the form of additional running costs for the DVLA at £2 million to £7
million per annum. 518 This equates at around £1 - £4 per car currently scrapped in
the UK. An additional fund to cover the increase in abandoned vehicles was also
provided by the Department of Trade and Industry to help Local Authorities with
increasing clear up costs.
Costs in setting up trade associations and for applying standards for ATFs and
recovered materials can also imply further costs for a State implementing such
policies, as can the cost of providing adequate reporting systems so that recycling
targets can be measured, and developing administrative systems to manage CoD.
23.7 Effects on Technical Change / Innovation
The policies should drive manufacturers to design vehicles that are easier to recycle
and recovery materials from. However, GHK, and Bio Intelligence Service (2006)
conclude that, notwithstanding manufacturer’s legal obligation to design vehicles in a
way that they meet the recycling and recovery targets set out in the EU Directive,
there is limited evidence of any significant change in vehicle design. This could be
due to:
443
� Historic trends showing that vehicle construction materials are moving away
from ferrous metals to plastics (that are harder to recycle) so industry is taking
time to find novel ways to design new components with recyclability in mind; 519
� The marginal costs of recycling replacement components being high, due to
the labour costs involved in manual dismantling; or
� A greater level of R&D into post-shredder technologies being undertaken, thus
negating the need for further design improvements to the vehicles to meet
higher targets. Estimates are that new processes could generate capture rates
of up to 75% from the ASR. 520 This would allow for the 95% target to be met
with little extra being done above the current 80% baseline. Hence if this is a
more cost effective option than to redesign components to be easily recycled
at the dismantlers, producers may be relying on this technology to meet the
recycling and recovery targets.
As highlighted in Section 23.5.2, marginal recycling and recovery rates are potentially
only achievable if R&D is invested into post-shredder technologies (that can
mechanically sort recyclables from the residue) in order to make further recycling
cost-effective. All the main studies considered in this report indicate that the ELV
518 A. Doran (2003) Policy discussion by Andy Doran from LARAC, Accessed 15 th October 2008,
http://www.larac.org.uk/pdf/elvbrief.pdf
519 Waste Online (2004) End of life vehicle and tyre recycling information sheet, Accessed 15 th October
2008, http://www.wasteonline.org.uk/resources/InformationSheets/vehicle.htm
520 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
International Review of Waste Policy: Annexes