From January a new law - the Waste Management (End-of-Life) Vehicle Regulations 2006 - comes into force in Ireland that will allow owners of cars that have come to the end of their useful lives to take their ageing vehicle to an authorised centre for dismantling and recycling free of charge.
The new law is aimed at stopping the illegal dumping of old cars and at ensuring that as much of an end-of-life vehicle (ELV) as possible is recycled by a licenced dismantler in a responsible manner.
Every year end-of life vehicles across Europe generate between eight and nine million tonnes of waste. According to the Department of the Environment, the key aims of the Directive are to ensure that a minimum of 85 per cent of a vehicle is recycled and that by 2015 a minimum of 95 per cent is recycled.
"When a person has a car or small van that has reached the end of its useful life, there will be at least one facility available in their county or city where they can bring the vehicle in the knowledge that it will be depolluted and dismantled to a high standard. The steel, plastic, glass and tyres, will be recovered for recycling in a way that is not harmful to the environment," explained the Minister for the Environment, Dick Roche, when he published the Directive earlier this summer. The legislation states that the dismantling and recycling must be achieved at no cost to the final owner of the vehicle and must be done in a manner that does not cause environmental pollution.
In practice, this means that every county will have at least one authorised ELV treatment centre that will accept old vehicles. It is anticipated that there will be 45 treatment centres.
These centres, which will be licenced and inspected annually, will issue a certificate of destruction to the last owner when the vehicle is handed over for recycling. However, the centres will only freely accept cars that have not had essential components such as airbags removed or where additional waste has been added to the vehicle.
Much to the annoyance of the motor industry, the Irish government has insisted that each car importer, which is any business that imports more than 10 cars annually, must pay an annual fee that in some cases can be as high as €7,500 to every local authority, as well as take full responsibility for the entire administration of the ELV system.
The annual cost just for registering with each local authority is put at €250,000 for some of the country's largest car importers - and this additional cost will be added to the price of a new car.
The industry is also pointing out that there will not be enough work for all of the 45 treatment centres. It says that many current centres must make significant investments to bring them up to the standards laid down in the new regulations.
But it says there will not be the required returns to make this investment a viable proposition. For example it says that if an ELV treatment centre was established in County Leitrim, it would only receive three weeks' work based on the number of cars taken off the county's roads each year.
Those found in breach of the ELV law risk a fine of €15,000,000 and 10 years' imprisonment.