How Are Various Car Parts Recycled?

Over the course of owning your vehicle, you take it into the shop or dealership for regular maintenance. You might need new tires after 50,000 miles, a new battery after 75,000 miles, and oil changes every 5,000 to 10,000 miles. 

Once a technician removes certain parts or fluids from your vehicle, they typically get sent to another site for recycling. The reason is that some vehicle parts can be reused repeatedly in a recyclable loop, while tires can be turned into mulch or other items that have nothing to do with keeping your car on the road.

Our team reviews how various car parts are recycled in today’s blog.

Related Post: We Answer Common Questions About Getting an Oil Change in Springfield, MO

Used Motor Oil 

When a technician removes your vehicle’s old motor oil, it looks dark and has contaminants in it due to the thousands of miles of work the oil put in to protect your pistons from wear, tear, and friction. The technician saves the oil in large drums to be shipped to a recycling facility before returning to a refinery.

According to the EPA, used oil can be re-refined into several substances. This happens when a refinery filters out all of the contaminants in the oil, including dirt, bits of heavy metals, and soot. All of these contaminants reduce the effectiveness of the oil slowly over time, which is why oil changes are vital to the longevity of your vehicle’s engine. 

Refineries can filter out these contaminants to create a new base oil, which gives them a clean slate to create new lubricants. The refinery will then add detergents, dispersants, and other chemicals to restore the oil to its original effectiveness, viscosity, and color. Around 1 gallon of used motor oil makes 2.5 quarts of re-refined motor oil. So, around 60% of the used motor oil is recycled for further use, which is very good.

Recycling Other Vehicle Fluids 

Many of the fluids in your vehicle can be recycled using the same methods as motor oil. That’s because a lot of the lubricants are petroleum-based. Refineries will take in other vehicle lubricants for recycling, including:

• Transfer case fluid
• Differential oil
• Brake fluid
• Transmission fluid
• Gear oil
• Power steering fluid
• Brake cleaner

Antifreeze from your radiator can also be recycled through distillation, filtration, recycling machines, or an ion exchange method. Antifreeze is ethylene glycol, and it also gets contaminants such as dirt and heavy metals over time. Recycling antifreeze can be done on-site or locally rather than sending it away to a refinery or recycling center.

Car Batteries

Car batteries are very heavy and filled with corrosive acid, which is why they have thick outer shells. When you replace your vehicle’s battery, chances are good you are required by law to recycle it at some point. You can take your vehicle to a recycling center, dealership, or car repair shop. From there, car batteries are taken by truck to a recycling center.

At some point, the fluid in your vehicle’s battery no longer transmits electricity through the ions in the medium. The ionic fluid is the only thing that can’t be recycled back into another car battery. 

At the industrial plant, batteries undergo an extensive recycling process. Three main components are turned in various products:

• Used lead grids and components are separated from the plastic before they are melted into lead ingots and reformed into new battery components.
• Plastic cases are melted down into plastic pellets, which are reformed into new plastic cases for another battery.
• The battery acid is transformed into sodium sulfate, which goes into chemicals for cleaning products, detergent, glass, and textile manufacturing.  

A full 99% of a vehicle’s battery mass is recyclable, so it’s essential to keep this chain going where most of the battery is kept out of landfills to prevent groundwater contamination. Automotive batteries are also made up of 80% recycled materials, so lead-acid batteries are very eco-friendly as part of your vehicle’s components.

Tires 

When you get new tires on your vehicle, the old ones get loaded onto a truck and are transported to a recycling facility. At the facility, heavy-duty machinery separates the steel belts from the rubber after crunching them in a giant grinder. The steel is melted down and recycled. 

The rubber gets turned into ground rubber for:

• Mulch on playgrounds
• Synthetic turf
• Asphalt additives and filler
• Eco-friendly fuel at a chemical plant

Each tire gets turned into rubber chips, steel wire, and mesh rubber powder. Recycled rubber can reduce the carbon footprint of virgin rubber by a factor of up to 20.

Window Glass

Glass, just like metal, can be recycled an infinite number of times. The window glass on an old vehicle will go on a truck to a glass recycling facility. At that point, it’s melted down and turned into new glass. The new glass can be made into anything used for glass, including windows, shower glass, and other tempered glass materials.  

Car Frames

Did you know that 95% of vehicles retired from American roadways are recycled? The auto recycling industry is responsible for $25 billion to the annual GDP of the country and is the 16th largest industry in the United States.

One major component of auto recycling is the frame. Once all other fluids, parts, and glass are removed from the vehicle, the iron or aluminum frame goes to a metal recycler. The frame goes into an enormous shredder device that turns the metal into fist-sized pieces. The metals are separated into steel and aluminum before being sent to a smelter, where they are melted down and reforged into new metal for other components. 

Much of America’s new steel is made of recycled materials, so auto recycling is very eco-friendly once it reaches the end of its usable life. 

Related Post: There’s a Big Difference Between Cosmetic Damage and a Damaged Frame 

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