Plastic circularity in cars
Malin discusses the circular flow of one of the materials used in cars; plastics, and the development of plastic circularity with Andreas Frössberg, CEO of the Swedish Car Recyclers Association. The talk is framed around these questions:
Q1. If we look at the car as a product in a circular flow, how would you describe it, Andreas? (01:26)
Q2. How much of the car is made of plastics, in general? (05:19)
Q3. What is the development regarding plastics in cars? (07:11)
Q4. Are there any initiatives or projects you could tell us about to increase the recycling and reuse of plastics in cars? (10:48)
Q5. What action do you think would be needed to reduce the number of plastics in the car industry that is not yet recirculated? (12:30)
Credits
Artwork: Giancarlo Mitidieri
Jingle: Frans Sjöberg
Malin:
This is the podcast where we are following the progress of transforming the market on plastic products and packaging in Sweden, ultimately moving away from taking, making, and wasting to a circular plastics economy. I'm Malin Leth and I'm the host. And today we have Andreas Frössberg with us, CEO of the Swedish Car Recyclers Association.
Malin:
So cars are a good example of a product that lasts for a long time, and I think many of us could relate to that. But unlike many other things we use frequently, it has several owners during its lifetime. Also, like many other things we use frequently, it is loaded with different types of materials that could be reduced, reused, or recycled. So let's take a look at what the flow of one of the materials used in cars is, plastics. So Andreas, if we look at the car as a product, in a circle of flow, how would you describe it?
Andreas:
Well, first I think the car is often overlooked when circular economy or circularity is discussed, which is in my opinion, unfortunate since the car in most aspects is an A-class student, I would say. Of course, this has a lot to do with the car's carbon footprint. Transportation is responsible for nearly 30% of we use total greenhouse gas emissions, and 72% comes from road transportation, which is mainly fossil-based petrol and diesel. So due to that fact, the car, when we talk about sustainability and circularity, is often overlooked I think, the car's life cycle. Then I think we see another picture emerging. Instead here we have a project that has been working with circularity for a very long time, I would say.
Andreas:
First, I mean, it has a very long lifespan in comparison with other products. A regular car on average lives maybe for 18 years. Of course, some cars has a shorter life due to accidents and so on, but that doesn't mean that they fall out of the loop, so to say. Secondly, during its lifespan, I mean the car changes owners maybe three to five times, which I don't know how many other products do that during its lifespan.
Malin:
Yeah. Like 18 years and changing owners. Like not many other products, maybe. I don't know. I cant come up with anyone.
Andreas:
No, maybe houses.
Malin:
Oh, yeah. True.
Andreas:
And then if it breaks down, we always do what we can in order to get it repaired. And we don't only do it with new parts, but very, very often the car is repaired with used parts. And those parts come mainly from those cars that I mentioned that has been in an accident or has ended their life prematurely. And when they do that, they end up at our members that are the car dismantler, and here they have the vital part of the circularity scheme of the car. So they don't just dismantle the car, but they also remove all the parts that can be reused in repairs and then sell them back to workshops. So it's those parts that keep maintaining the life of the car until it becomes, the term is ELV or End of Life Vehicle when it ends its life, so to say.
Andreas:
And then on the final stage, when it becomes an ELV, once again, the first stop is that you hand over your car to a car dismantler. And they remove all the hazardous waste like glycol or other hazardous fractions. And then after that, they take off all the parts that can be reused before handing it over to the shredders for final material reuse. So when we look at it at the end, when the car has been through the whole life cycle, 95% of the car is either recycled or reused. And I don't know how many products you can, in top of mind, that can match that or outdo the car. I think it's hard-
Malin:
Yeah.
Andreas:
To find.
Malin:
Talking a bit more about the car and what it's made of, how much of the car is made of plastics like in general?
Andreas:
Yeah, it's a good question. I would say a car maybe consists of around 30,000 different parts.
Malin:
Oh wow.
Andreas:
And I would say that perhaps a little less than one-third of them are made of plastics. So on average, we probably have somewhere between 150 to 200 kilograms of plastics in the car. So the average weight of the plastics in the car maybe make up to around 20% today. And if we would compare that to a car from maybe the 70s, that number would probably have been somewhere around only 5%.
Malin:
Oh, yeah.
Andreas:
So it has increased over the years.
Malin:
And do you see that will continue?
Andreas:
Yeah probably, because one of the driving factors for this is fuel efficiency. So around 80% of vehicle energy consumption depends on vehicle weight, and when fuel and fuel efficiency has become one of the most essential features in car design, mainly due to greenhouse gas emissions, rising fuel prices, and also strict environmental regulations, but also customer demand. So probably the total amount of plastic will surely increase. And I don't see any different scenario when we start to talk about electrical vehicles. The battery packs are heavy, so we still need lighter materials to get the most mileage out of the cars.
Malin:
Yeah. So more plastics, even in the future?
Andreas:
Probably.
Malin:
Or lightweight material, that-
Andreas:
Lightweight material.
Malin:
Yeah, yeah. So then what is the development regarding plastics in cars, Andreas?
Andreas:
Well, there are numerous different types of plastics and polymers used in cars, but I would say that there are maybe four major types of plastics in cars. We have PP, we have PU, PVC and ABS. And these four types make up for around 70% of all the amount of plastics in the car. Now, plastic is a key material in today's vehicles, and they are required for the structure, performance, and of course, safety. Plastic has excellent absorption properties, which is today necessary to meet stricter safety standards. And also a feature like radar safety components, they can now be built behind the plastic bumpers, since the waves can travel through. But here also one trend that we are seeing from the car manufacturers is that they design in a way that they try to limit the mixing of recyclable and non-recyclable plastics in order to increase recyclability.
Malin:
Yeah. And of those plastics you mentioned, they are also commonly recycled?
Andreas:
Yeah, as long as you can have clean streams of them. So for example, bumpers are mainly of PU. The bumper is a large part that could be dissembled when it comes to car dismantler. As long as we have a financial stream as well, it's still time consuming, but it could be done.
Malin:
Yeah, so the time-consuming work in that would be to dismantle it?
Andreas:
Yeah.
Jane:
Yeah.
Andreas:
And then you have to transport it and you have to have the whole chain of course. And that again is connected to that there has to be a value that is of secondary material or reuse material that is greater than virgin plastic.
Malin:
And do you know how many of those different types of plastics, how much of them currently are being used as virgin material? And are some of them moving more towards recycled material already?
Andreas:
Today, we don't really do this disassembly where we sort the plastic in the larger aspects, it's being done on a smaller scale. But it's not been done on a large scale, maybe for except I would say France is actually a little bit ahead of us. I know that they reuse plastics much more frequently than we do. I think I saw a number that in 2018, they reused over 11,000 tons of plastic material. So it can be done if everyone puts an effort into it, both legislation and producers and all the parts that are involved.
Malin:
Do you have any initiatives or projects you could tell us about to increase the recycling and reuse of plastics in cars?
Andreas:
Well, I think that we see several different initiatives on different levels. For one, we are seeing more and more commitments from several car manufacturers on using recycled plastic in cars. For example, Volvo stated that 25% of all the plastic in their cars after 2025 should be from recycled material. And I know in Japan, there is a bumper return program from dealerships with materials used for automotive components. And here in Sweden, recently, we had another bumper project that aim to remove bumpers and then use them as materials for 3D printed products. And we have been involved through a network of car dismantlers, which is also makes up a part of the car manufacturer's reception system. But together with several other partners and was led by IVL, we had a project a couple of years ago that was called Realizing Resource Efficient Recycling of Vehicles. One of the recommendations was that you should at least remove front bumpers and underbody shields, rear bumpers and floor mats in the dismantling process for reuse or recycling.
Malin:
So then talking a bit about action. Do you think a specific action would be needed to reduce the number of plastics in the car industry that's not yet recirculated? Because we have been talking about what could circle back, but looking at what's not circulated back right now, do you see an action needed for that to increase?
Andreas:
Well, I would, first of all, maybe start with one of the key aspects, I would say, to stop would be to stop the leakage of End of Life Vehicles. The situation today is that about 30 or 40% of all vehicles disappear in the EU without notification to National Vehicle Registers of-
Malin:
How do they disappear?
Andreas:
Yeah, good question. One possible reason is that they don't end up at a car dismantler. It's only car dismantles that can issue a COD, or a Certificate Of Destruction. So if they don't end up there, they don't get de-registered, so to say. Another aspect could be maybe illegal export, and this is something that the EU is looking at. And the ELV directive that regulates our industry is currently being reviewed, and that is a significant part of that revision. Another thing here in Sweden, we have looked at currently, there's also an overview of the Extended Producer Responsibility regarding cars, and that's ongoing right now. And one of the suggestions in that review is that a fine can be issued if you do not hand over your car or your End of Life Vehicle to authorize the dismantler. So I think that is a good step to ensure that the car gets back to the car dismantlers, so the car dismantlers can in a sense close the loop.
Malin:
Yeah, but then I'm thinking about the cars that disappear. Do you find them somewhere? Or did it just like say "poof" and then the car is gone?
Andreas:
Well, yeah, currently we do not find them really. They still exist on paper, but we really don't know where they are, unfortunately. In Sweden for instance, it could be that they are out in the country. We have larger areas to have more cars. We can have them behind our barn and they can stand there for several years without anyone really thinking that they are a problem. So instead of handing it over for recycling...
Malin:
They are just standing still somewhere.
Andreas:
Somewhere, yeah. And then, of course, if we have an illegal export, then they are going beyond our borders and then we don't know where they end up.
Malin:
Yeah. So then I'm thinking, is there any action our listeners could take to help recirculate parts in cars? Or to close the gap on what's not getting back into the system?
Andreas:
I think that one thing that you always can do as a person that owns a car, is that make sure that when it's time, when it has become an End of Life Vehicle, hand it over to an authorized car dismantler. Make sure that you hand it over to a car dismantler that has authorization because they are the only ones that should handle the end of life of the car. And when you hand over your car, if it breaks down, hand it over to a workshop, ask for use of used spare parts instead of new parts.
Malin:
Because there is a lot of them.
Andreas:
There's a lot of them. One of the larger bases where you can find car parts here in Sweden has, I mean over 5 million different parts that come from our dismantlers. So there are a lot of parts that can be used in repairs.
Malin:
Yeah. Wow. Thank you so much. Do you have anything you would like to add to the discussion?
Andreas:
Well, I would say that yes. Looking with the eyes of the dismantler, I think generally we need more actions to make dissembling, sorting and recycling economically rewarding, and we also need to promote value from plastics recycling in general. Today, many plastic components are time-consuming to extract, and unfortunately, they have little value in secondary markets as of now, but it can be done. And I think we need to keep promoting the reuse of plastic parts in general. So yeah. And yes, as long as virgin material is cheaper than reused material, it's hard to close this loop, but if that would change, then I think we have a shift that goes beyond our industry. It would affect plastics in all different areas and branches.
Jane:
So this was a longer episode exploring plastic circularity in a specific product. And this time it was about a car. If you like this kind of episode where we are looking at specific products, we're having more of these in the making. And speaking of that, we want to do even more. So we have a call to action for your listeners today. What product should we explore the plastic circularity of next time? Let us know. Share your favourite plastic product in an email to oceanalliance@hsr.se.