When you’re driving past a junkyard or auto recycling center, you might see a number of things: crushed cars, vehicles waiting to be recycled or even vehicles that look as though they’ve been gutted—it’s enough to make anyone wonder. So, where exactly do cars go once they’ve been delivered to auto recyclers in Nanaimo and what happens to them after we’re done with them? Take a look at a few of the possibilities:
Parts and pieces: Sometimes, a car finds its way to the junkyard in decent condition. Not every car that’s awaiting recycling is a complete wreck and even those that are still have things to offer. In most cases, a car will be stripped of its usable parts when it reaches auto recyclers in Nanaimo and those parts will be inventoried and stored for later—perhaps to be sold by a dealer or refurbished to be used in other cars. Older cars especially will have their working parts stripped in order to keep other models still on the road in prime working order.
Scrap metal: When there are no more usable parts left in a car and it has been properly stripped of all hazardous materials, it’s usually shredded or crushed. This allows many cars to be sold to scrap dealers, who will then use the raw materials to help recycle old cars into new items. Metals that are salvaged from cars can end up in a variety of different applications and many times, recycled metals are used over new materials to help reduce pollution. Look around you—if anything nearby is made with recycled metals, there’s a decent chance that they came from an old car! Steel and iron are the primary metals salvageable from old automobiles.
Restoration: Hobbyists and car enthusiasts love coming to junkyards for old cars that they can restore. If a car’s body is in good shape and it has some telltale signs of a future in it, the heap may be sold to someone who has intent to restore it. While this requires a sizeable amount of time and money, there are some enthusiasts who simply love rebuilding old cars—especially those models no longer being manufactured.
Did you know that roughly 2,500 pounds of iron ore, 1,400 pounds of coal and 120 pounds of limestone are saved each time one ton of automobile scrap is recycled, instead of just junked? It’s environmental benefits such as this that make repurposing old parts, reselling old shells and selling scrap far more lucrative for auto recyclers in Nanaimo, as opposed to the alternative!
The next time you’re driving past a junkyard and wondering what happens to all of those cars, remember that they may not be drivable any longer, but that doesn’t mean that their purpose has been entirely fulfilled! Conversely, the next time you purchase a used automobile part or something made from recycled scrap metal, remember that your new purchase may be the product of something repurposed.