It’s easy and effective to search “Scrap cars collection near me” or “How do I scrap my car?”online. Thus, there are lesser dumping grounds and landfills full of junk cars that leak toxins all around nowadays. Today, authorised treatment facilities utilise, recover, or recycle up to 95% of the material in destroyed vehicles.
For their parts to be recycled and reused, scrap vehicles must all be properly de-polluted and dismantled by a licensed scrap treatment facility. Today, we’ll examine the car-scrapping procedure and learn what happens to vehicles at the end of their useful lives. Stay tuned.
What are Scrap yards?
A scrap yard, also known as a salvage yard, is a place where commercial establishments and households who require assistance in getting rid of these things can sell them scrap metal as well as old or damaged automobiles. After collecting the junk, they categorise it in order to scrap the metal and resell it elsewhere or sell individual vehicle pieces from the yard.
How do Scrap yards work?
A scrap metal yard gathers pieces from persons who bring unwanted metals and automobiles there in exchange for payment based on the delivery’s weight. The facility typically buys metals from organisations like construction or demolition firms, manufacturers, and governments, but it also allows individuals to sell their goods in the yard.
After being purchased, the scrap metal is classified as non-ferrous metal & ferrous metal, non-recyclable materials or electronics. Conventional metals like iron and steel are referred to as ferrous metals, but non-ferrous metals, which include copper, brass, and aluminium, are non-magnetic and typically more expensive.
What happens to Scrap cars at Yards?
All scrapped cars are required by UK law to be depolluted. Depollution assures that no dangerous poisons or toxins are discharged into the environment, water supply, or food chain by removing hazardous components.
After the vehicle goes through cleaning of pollutants, the dangerous parts are documented, safely disposed of, or sold if they are still usable. Light materials, such as foam, fabric, and plastic, can be separated for recycling using a hoover. To quickly separate the ferrous metals using a magnet, the remaining car metal is ripped into little bits. Because iron and steel are endlessly recyclable and make up about 65% of a vehicle’s weight, scrap automobiles must be treated in this way.
Process of Car Scrapping
Below is the process of how car scrap yards treat junk cars:
Depollution.
As mentioned above, cars contain various kinds of fluids and toxins and thus they must be depolluted. There are various components of a junk cars that need to go through proper removal and treatment such as:
- Battery – Battery is the first component that goes through the removal and treatment process. Sometimes a battery can be fit to resell and if not, it has to go through an appropriate recycling process.
- Tyres – If the tyres are usable then they are good for a resell. Although if the tyres are not in good condition then they have to be treated accordingly. Since tyres have rubber compounds, they are shredded so that they’re ready for re-use.
- Fluids – Fuel, oils, coolants, etc also go through the removal and treatment process. These fluids are drained from the vehicle and then they are stored away in sealed tanks.
- Toxic Metals – The most prevalent toxic elements in your car are lead and mercury; for instance, mercury is found in many switches. To ensure their safe disposal, these will be removed to isolate them from other materials.
- Plastic & Glass – glass can be taken out and reused, which happens frequently in the building sector. Polymers must also be removed individually since they can be recycled more successfully.
There are various other components in your car that need safe removal and disposal. For example, airbags contain chemicals which if not removed, can be explosive when it is sent for crushing.
Crushing.
The crushing process begins once all potentially hazardous or useful components have been removed from an old set of wheels. It’s easier to take these shapes to a shredder whether your car is flattened or continues to exist for a while as a cube.
Recycling.
After crushing, what’s remaining can be recyclable in different ways effectively. There are various uses of recycled metal and as such, car scrap yards can use the scrapped cars for various such purposes.
Conclusion
To summarise, every end-of-life vehicle has a long journey to go through after people send them to car scrap yards. If you wish to learn more about car scrap yards and wondering “How do I scrap my car?”, check out Slough Scrap. We’re a licensed treatment facility popular for our effective methods of car scrapping and metal treatment. Visit our website to learn more.