Junk car donations help keep it green by recycling materials and parts that would normally end up in a landfill and reusing those items. Back in 2009 the United Recyclers Group (URG) attempted to measure the impact of automobile recycling in a study that focused on the energy and resource savings of reusing and recycling parts. The study was conducted by the University of Colorado’s Environmental Engineering Department, the study’s findings were based on the estimation that 11 million vehicles are retired every year. The report found that recycling cars sends between 3 and 4.5 million tons of shredder residue to landfills each year. This material includes everything from plastic to glass to rubber.
Recycle By Doing a Junk Car Donation
Recycling just steel fenders saves more than 8 million tons of raw material (mostly iron and coal) that would be used to make new steel. Aluminum wheel recycling would save 1.71 billion kilowatt hours of energy that would be needed to make new wheels from virgin aluminum. Auto recycling extracts 24 million gallons of motor oil a year, which is reprocessed to keep it out of landfills. All three materials are commonly removed during the auto scrapping process, with steel and aluminum sold off as scrap metal. But car recycling also landfills about 25 percent of the average car by weight, which includes other recyclable material such as glass, plastic and rubber.
The CU study did not take into account the impact of Cash for Clunkers, which had some auto recyclers receiving 10 times the supply of cars because of a government incentive to trade-in old cars for recycling. “Thanks to our auto recycling industry, the brakes are being tapped on climate change,” said Michelle Alexander, URG executive director. “Energy consumption is being reduced; less material is being mined, refined and used; many forms of pollution are lowered; and the carbon footprint for the whole auto industry is being reduced.”
So stop letting that vehicle rust in a field, garage or back yard. Pick up the phone or use our online donation form and make a junk car donation today!
