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Much attention has focused recently on the recycling of automobiles. Due to the value of their metallic content, automobiles are presently the most highly recycled product in the world. The problem is the remainder of material that is presently landfilled. Automotive shredder residue (ASR, or “fluff”) is made up of a number of materials including plastics, glass, fluids, and dirt. The presence of this mix presents both a problem and an opportunity for the automotive and recycling industries. In order to determine how best to recover the materials that make up ASR, it is first necessary to understand the costs incurred in the present automobile recycling infrastructure: dismantling, shredding/ferrous metal separation, non-ferrous metal separation, and landfilling. Through a technique called Technical Cost Modeling, the costs of the present process are simulated.

End-of-life appliance, automobile and mixed ferrous scrap shredder residue screened to pass 2.2 cm with a metal content of 12.9% was characterized and processed to yield organic- and inorganic-rich products. A combination of hydrocycloning, screening, rising current, wet tabling, magnet, and grinding technology was utilized to give ferrous and non-ferrous metal, organic, and inorganic/sand separations at four different size distributions. Economic modeling of the process showed that mechanical recovery of the metal and sand, based upon current market pricing of the constituents, may be viable, reducing landfill volumes and creating a new revenue stream for the shredding operation.