Recycling of Derelict Cars.

Today, the recycling of large numbers of derelict cars no longer presents a technical problem. But the cost-efficiency of the preparation plants, and thus of the recycling of derelict cars, is only ensured in the long run if the costs incurred can be covered by the proceeds from the sale of the metallic car components. Despite certain technical and economic benefits that the automobile manufacturers can derive from replacing steel by plastics, the overly optimistic prognoses of increasing plastics utilization have been more subdued recently. Some automobile manufacturers are becoming more and more aware of the fact that an increasing use of plastics is limited by the future waste disposal possibilities for these materials. The future preparation of derelict cars can only function in the long run if the interests of the automobile manufacturers, steel industry, and scrap industry, as well as those of the plastics industry are taken into account within the framework of a technically and economically practical recycling process.