Managing and remaking metals

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Who knew a hundred years ago that just under half of a 2001 model year vehicle would be manufactured out of dismantled, flattened, and shredded older vehicles?

by Jean L. Broge, Associate Editor

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In a time of limited and more limited resources, it is important to give back what has been taken. While a house will stand and serve its purpose for decades and even centuries, technology changes too fast to expect the same of a car. We want them faster, stronger, smarter. After they've become slower, weaker, dumber, we give them to our teenagers and buy a new one. Or we trade them in for something quieter, safer, sleeker. But in case what we bought originally was not destined to become a classic car, chances are it will eventually have to be disposed of. Fortunately there are laws against driving a car out onto the Alaskan tundra and abandoning it when it becomes too old. We must come up with other ways, and we have.

Steel recycling rates

The overall steel recycling rate rose slightly from 1999 to 2000, with more than 64 million t (70 million ton) of steel being recycled. The automobile recycling rate grew by over 4%, with almost 13.1 million t (14.4 million ton) of automotive steel recycled into new steel products. (Information courtesy of the Steel Recycling Institute.) Click to enlarge

With a life span at or exceeding 11 years, more than 123 million passenger cars are in use in North America. Despite their complex construction, cars are one of today's most recycled commodities. Virtually all the steel and iron are recovered for reuse and recycling along with most of the other metals, such as aluminum, copper, and lead.

The very roots of the automobile recycling industry lie in the steel industry's need for ferrous scrap. Once all the fluids have been drained and all the reusable parts have been removed from an automobile, ferrous scrap processors shred the car and sell the ferrous material to a steel mill.

The bodies and engines of automobiles are normally made from steel and iron, with the steel used in car bodies containing a minimum of 25% recycled steel. The steel and iron used in automobiles contain recycled material because steel scrap is the single largest ingredient, raw materials or otherwise, needed to make new steel. Many internal steel and iron parts (such as engine blocks) are made using even higher percentages of recycled steel. By weight, the typical passenger car consists of nearly 66% steel and iron, with the average content of recycled steel in the car being about 44%.

Determining an automobile recycling rate is as easy as comparing the annual tonnage of steel used to produce new automobiles with the tonnage recycled from old automobiles that same year. Using this method, the 2000 recycling rate was 95%, with the steel industry recycling enough steel from old cars to produce more than 14 million new automobiles.

The automobile recycling rate improved from 91.2% in 1999 to 95.4% in 2000, as almost 13.1 million t (14.4 million ton) of steel were recycled from automobiles into new steel products. The overall steel recycling rate managed to rise slightly from 63.9% in 1999 to 64.1% in 2000, as more than 64 million t (70 million ton) of steel were recycled. Also advancing a bit was the steel-can recycling rate, which edged up to 58.4% from 57.9%, as more than 19.5 billion cans were recycled.

Although the recycling rates climbed modestly last year, the North American steel industry has witnessed many of its producers battle the global over-capacity of steel and "unfairly priced steel imports, which have forced some to idle furnaces and file for bankruptcy," said Bill Heenan, President of the Steel Recycling Institute. "As the North American steel industry rebounds, steel recycling rates will likely regain the positive momentum established in past years."

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