The Auto recycling Industry is not a new phenomenon. Scrap yards, Junk yards or Salvage yards have been operating for decades. These facilities store and remove parts from old vehicles and often create scrap metals from them. The practice leads to less waste of materials as they are reused in other vehicles and applications. These operations are currently guided by new environmental codes that ensure that the least amount of pollutants from old vehicles are released into the surroundings. Large furnaces used to smelt vehicles are built with afterburners to eliminate the emission of toxic substances. In addition, owners are expected to obtain the necessary permits and follow the guidelines set out for storage. The auto recycling industry has the potential to be quite profitable with major automobile manufacturers also contributing by purchasing these older parts for refurbishing and resale.
Reusing Parts from Vehicles
Auto recycling centers typically store vehicles that still have useful parts. They keep these in areas of the compound that are designated for this type of storage. More advanced facilities will have mechanics remove these parts and place them in a large warehouse. Once they are put in storage they are tagged and entered on a database for sales purposes. In some cases showrooms are set up to make it much easier for customers to search for parts and directly purchase them on site. In other less modernized facilities the parts remain in the vehicle and customers are given the opportunity to pull these parts themselves, use their own mechanic, or pay extra to have a scrap yard representative retrieve the part. In the event that the car is in relatively good condition, the mechanics at the scrap yard may preserve these and sell them to auto restoration enthusiasts.
Recycling Metals
After a vehicle has been inspected for possible working parts and they have been removed, the body of the vehicle is crushed and stacked. In its dismantled form it is known as scrap metal. The scrap metal is processed in a furnace that maintains high enough temperatures to melt the base constituents which makes separation possible. Elements like aluminum, zinc, brass, nickel, steel, copper and iron are obtained for reuse. This smelting process has the potential to produce hazardous emissions and for this reason safety regulations are put in place to ensure that this does not happen. The processing of scrap metal may not necessarily occur at the salvage yard. Instead the pieces are sold to other facilities where this can be undertaken.
Auto recycling is one of the best ways that wastage and pollution can be avoided. The alternative to a scrap yard is a landfill which produces harmful greenhouses gases, potentially poisons underground water supplies and pollutes the air.