CARE is a collaborative project involving the main UK motor vehicle manufacturers/importers and vehicle dismantlers. It's objective is to research and prove materials re-use and recycling processes with a view to reducing the amount of scrapped vehicle waste going to landfill from the disposal of ELVs.
The study follows on from an initial small-scale project which suggested that demand for used parts existed for vehicles up to 12 years old. Previously it was thought that seven-year-old cars were the oldest for which a demand for used parts existed.
The work will look at the used parts business and the way used parts are sold and will see whether the industry would benefit from changing this. The project will also look at the non-OE (Original Equipment) parts business and it should be completed by October 2001.
Peter Stokes, of CARE, said: ” We are very pleased to work with DEFRA on this project. The results will determine what a properly formulated used parts proposition would look like and how the industries may need to organise themselves. Increased used parts sales could be a boon to car owners struggling to keep themselves mobile in the face of rising costs. At the moment used part sales take place on a local level and dealers have relied on walk in customers. A better proposition may be that if dismantlers are linked by mail order or to the internet they might be able to reach more people and sell more used parts. The study will look at creating an infrastructure which may lead to increased used part sales.”
He added: “For the used parts chain it could mean greater profitability in the face of current declining sales, and for the UK it could economically deliver a significant contribution to the End-of-Life Vehicle recycling, recovery and reuse targets. For the vehicle producers, an increase in used parts sales could mean a reduction in the number of negative value vehicles processed, these are the vehicles whose recycling costs manufacturers may be asked to contribute to.”
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