Here at Take My Scrap Car, we’re not only interested in the car scrapping and recycling business in the UK. We’re firm believers in the importance of responsible recycling worldwide, which is why we take an active interest in what goes on overseas. So for this post, we thought we’d a share with you a few interesting pearls of wisdom regarding the car recycling industry in the United States.

To date, the US has done a good job setting a strong example for the way things can and should be done. Annually, somewhere in the region of 95% of all end-of-life vehicles in the United States are effectively processed and recycled.  On the whole, this amounts to around 12 million vehicles, which to one extent or another are put back into the system each year.

On the whole, the vehicle-recycling industry in the United States is one of the 20 largest industries in the country. Employing tens of thousands of people, the industry is valued at approximately $25 billion per year, in terms of overall revenues generated.

Not bad, given the fact that it’s an industry geared towards economic use of materials and minimisation of waste!

A few additional facts about this extraordinary car recycling industry are as follows:

  • In 1997, the total number of vehicles passed over to recycling firms in the United States was around 4.7 million. Today, this has more than doubled to 12 million.
  • The materials salvaged through the recycling process are enough to produce up to 13 million vehicles per year. 
  • Incredibly, vehicle-recycling processes are known to save the industry around 85 million barrels of oil per year, which would otherwise have been required to manufacture new materials.
  • Over and above all other types of waste, vehicles are the single most recycled items and assets in the United States. 
  • To date, somewhere in the region of 7000 authorised recycling centres for vehicles have opened across the country. 
  • When a car is processed and recycled responsibly, approximately 80% of its entire weight can be recycled and put back into the system in some way. This makes the vehicle-recycling process the most efficient of any mainstream recycling processes.
  • Approximately 14 million tons of recycled steel are produced by efficient vehicle scrapping and recycling practices annually.
  • Impressively, the vast majority of components within the average vehicle can now be recycled – including its battery. In fact, 98% of the components within a car battery can be recycled. 
  • Other parts of the average vehicle that can be recycled include glass, rubber, carpets, electrical components, plastics, ferrous metals, non-ferrous metals and fluids.

As can clearly be seen, the scale of the car scrapping and recycling industry in the United States is no less than extraordinary. We might not quite be handling scrap vehicles in the same volumes, but a million or so cars are nonetheless taken off UK roads every year. 

When the time comes to get rid of the scrap car in your life, contact the team at Take My Scrap Car for an unbeatable deal. Free collections, free transportation and the best price paid for every scrap vehicle – guaranteed!