Search Results

A life cycle assessment approach has been used to investigate the environmental impacts of disposal of end of life vehicles in the United Kingdom in 2015, according to current practice and the targets set in a UK industry implementation plan, and a proposed European Directive. The study found minor differences in environmental impact for the proposed scenarios with specific significant improvements over current practice. Certain flows dominate the assessed environmental impacts. The results showed that current practice is environmentally better compared to ‘zero recycling’. Significantly, end of life is between one to four orders of magnitude less than the total life cycle environmental impacts of a vehicle.

Under constant pressure through both national and EC-wide regulations as well as increased consumer awareness the automotive industry has become more and more concerned with improving the environmental profiles of its products. Namely the end-of-life aspects have been pushed into the center of interest. Trying to minimize disassembly cost and to increase potential revalorisation profits, companies strive to integrate environmental constraints early in the design phase. This paper describes how Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Design for the Environment (DFE) respectively contribute towards the objective of improved environmental profiles of automotives and especially the handling of end-of-life vehicules.