The mobile facility, based at the company's Kent Street depot in Preston, will allow every part of a vehicle to be re-used, recycled or disposed of in an environmentally sustainable manner.
 The mobile ELV recycling facility at Preston Recycling's Kent Street depot can process one vehicle every 20 minutes |
The company's technical staff have designed and constructed a purpose-built depollution rig that drains fluids from the vehicles prior to dismantling. Waste oils are taken to another Preston Recycling site to be re-used as heating fuel.
Serviceable parts and materials are stripped out from MOT failures and crash-damaged vehicles on the mobile facility, which can handle about four vehicles an hour, with a potential to dismantle about 150 ELVs a week. Preston Recycling's four sites process about 1,000 tonnes of scrap metal each week overall.
The parts taken from ELVs at Preston Recycling are recorded on a database, which is made available to the public onsite and on a new website – www.autobreakers.co.uk – so that spare parts can be ordered direct from the company. Preston Recycling is working with Lancashire county council on this venture.
Commenting on the new facility, Preston managing director Charles Jackson said: “We've engaged some original ideas and technology to make the whole process as environmentally friendly as possible. Alongside this, we have created and developed a new website that enables visitors to find and order anything from a wing mirror to a complete engine. The end result is an extremely positive position, where environmental awareness and responsibility go hand in hand with cost savings for vehicle owners throughout the region.”
Regulations
The new facility has been designed with an eye on forthcoming environmental legislation stemming from the European ELV Directive. It is expected that once regulations are in place by November 2003, ELV recyclers will have to gain waste management licences for exempt sites by February 2004 to become Authorised Treatment Facilities.
Speaking to letsrecycle.com, Mr Jackson said that two of Preston Recycling's four sites were exempt at the moment, while two were licensed, and that his company fully intended to become an ATF when the regulations were finalised.
Mr Jackson said: “This first facility is only a mobile one, designed to help take up the slack from the other sites. We are now looking to build permanent facilities at two other sites, and each of those will be able to handle double the number of ELVs that this one can. It's going to call for quite an investment, though – about 100,000 for each one – which is quite something before the regulations have been sorted out. But, I would hope that the new facilities will be up and running before spring next year.”
At the moment, Mr Jackson said they are paying about 30 per vehicle they receive, because there is good value in scrap in the area at the moment. However, the Preston Recycling MD said that when the new regulations come in, he envisaged depollution costs could be between 50 and 100 per vehicle.
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