Bangers and cash

By Anna Browning
BBC News

Clapped out old cars fetch millions of pounds as scrap metal every year, so why are owners breaking the law by abandoning their old bangers at the side of the road?

Every two minutes, somebody somewhere in Britain abandons their car. Typically, it's 14 years old, has come to the end of the road, bumpers scraping the Tarmac, oil leaking like water from a sieve, its MoT certificate nothing more than a memory.

A scrap yard would take it, but charge £50 for the privilege. So owners are tending to defy the law and abandon their old cars instead.

The trend is causing local authorities a massive headache. Since 2000 the number of cars abandoned is estimated to have risen by 750% because many simply cannot, or will not, pay to send them for scrap.

And yet scrapping cars is one of recycling's biggest success stories. In the UK we scrap 2.5 million cars a year - turning the waste metal into anything from washing machines to toasters.

So why the mass of abandoned cars?

Scrap metal is a multi-billion pound global industry; indeed some countries, such as Brazil, rely heavily on recycled metal. China's consumption of the world's steel has more than doubled to 31% in the 10 years to 2004.

'De-polluting is costly'

So the price of scrap is healthy. But it is the remaining 20% of a car - the oil, antifreeze, plastic fascias and tyres - that is costing recyclers, and consequently anyone wanting to get rid of their car.

A car-scrapping amnesty was run in January

All these components are environmental hazards which under new European legislation - the End of Life Vehicles directive - must be "treated" at authorised treatment facilities. And this costs money.

Since February 2004 when recyclers had to start investing in such facilities, a third have shut down. It costs around £50 to "de-pollute" a car.

Both recyclers and green campaigners lay the blame at the car manufacturers' door, calling on them to make cars more recyclable.

Roger Higman, environmental limits co-ordinator for Friends of the Earth, says the motor industry is shirking its responsibility.

"There has always been a commercial market for recycling metal but the big problem is what isn't recycled, as that accounts for about 10% of all of Europe's hazardous waste," he says.

"There are health and waste costs which were being passed on to us."

Tyre-ing problem

One of the biggest problems is tyres. A total of 25 million are discarded in this country each year, of which 50% are not recycled and go into landfill and tyre dumps - a major environmental hazard according to Mr Higman.

Among other things, tyres can be reused in road surfaces - but recycling is costly.

"If we put a charge on the final user - who probably has less money than anyone else in the chain who has owned it - it's not a surprise that sometimes they choose to dump their car," he says.

"After it's abandoned it's down to the local authority to salvage it, and hence the tax payer picks up the bill."

Tyre fires are an environmental disaster

Under the new rules, the current target is to recycle 85% of a car, rising to 95% in a decade.

For this to happen, car makers must use different - more recyclable - materials in new models, says Neil Marshall, director general of the British Metals Recycling Association. This will make recycling cheaper and easier.

But the clock is ticking, he says. In one to five years there will be a downturn in the commodity price, "because it is a cycle and we always do [see a drop]". This will further tighten the belt on recyclers.

Car manufacturers say they are on the case. Keith Lewis, spokesman for the Society for Motor Manufacturers and Traders says a higher percentage of each vehicle will be suitable for recycling.

But the process of designing a car through to production takes five years and these issues "weren't being discussed five years ago".

"That is something we are working quite intensively to rectify," he says .

Already manufacturers are working to set up a network of authorised sites where the public can get their car scrapped for free.

But the days of getting a little cash for your banger, it seems, are long gone.