Impacts of Material Substitution in Automobile Manufacture on Resource Recovery - Volume 1: Results and Summary.
Abstract
Probable changes in the mix of materials used to manufacture automobiles were examined to determine if economic or technical problems in recycling could arise such that the "abandoned automobile problem" would be resurrected. Future trends in materials composition of the automobile were quantified, and possible constraints related to material characteristics, availability, and price were examined. The automobile resource recovery industry was studied in terms of economic incentives for recycling and technical obstacles to recycling of deregistered automobiles. A macromodel of the economy, the EPA sponsored SEAS model, was used to study overall economic and environmental effects and to bring to light any secondary effects that might be important. The major conclusions are that auto hulks are likely to be in great demand for recycling, that the backlog of abandoned cars in the environment will very likely disappear by the early 1980's, and that changes in materials composition of autos will accentuate this tendency. Vertical integration of the larger firms in the industry is a likely trend at both the input (hulk collection, dismantling, and preparation for shredding) and output (nonferrous metals smelting) ends of the central hulk processing (shredding) part of the business. Overall economic impacts of the various automobile materials composition scenarios we studied were rather small, although effects in particular industries, relative to a base-case, no-change in materials composition scenario, were noticeable.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jul 01, 1976
- Accession Number
- ADA301792
Entities
People
- M. Markus-kramer
- R. W. Roig
- Renato Renner
- T. G. Jones
- W. L. Henn