Junk Car Recycling and Auto Salvage Facts
What will happen to my junk car after I send it to You Call We Haul?The van that ferried your kids to soccer games, got you safely to work and helped your teenagers move into their college dorm might become...
...an elevator in Boston
...an airplane hanger in Los Angeles
...a building in an Olympic Village
...a hospital in Turkey
...a bridge in Korea
...a ship in Japan
...or a 2009 Caravan
Automobile Recycling at Work
- The automobile is the most heavily recycled consumer product
- 94% of ferrous metal is recycled into new steel
- 65% of new steel produced in North America is made from scrap
- 75% of a car's content can be recycled
Old cars are typically hauled to an automobile dismantler, where reusable parts are removed. After removing the reusable parts and items like batteries, tires and fluids, the cars are put into a crusher and flattened into auto hulks. The hulks are shipped to ferrous scrap processors, where they are weighed for payment and unloaded.
At the scrap yard, the automobiles enter the shredder. The shredding process, which handles one car every 45 seconds, generates three streams: iron and steel; nonferrous metal; and fluff (fabric, rubber, glass, etc.).
The iron and steel are magnetically separated from the other materials. The iron and steel is then shipped to end markets or steel mills, where it is recycled to produce new steel.
