Recycling Product News MAR2022 / by Steve Fletcher / Read original article
As I approach my thirtieth year in the auto recycling industry, I join many of my industry colleagues in observing that I have probably seen more industry changes in the past five years than in the previous 30. The last two years, driven by the COVID-19 pandemic, have been marked by even more upheaval – and the future looks just as full of change for the industry.
Before I get into those changes and, more importantly, the implications of change and what the future holds, here is a bit of background on what I constitute to be the auto recycling industry.
The auto recycling industry, like all sectors of the overall automotive industry, is an ecosystem of businesses that interact with each other and with other parts of the overall auto supply chain in what was and is probably the best example of the circular economy. End-of-life vehicles (ELVs) are not waste – they are assets that need to be managed, oftentimes solely by market forces. They do have hazardous wastes in them that can be a problem, but the professional industry has evolved to understand how to best manage these resources and waste byproducts.
Navigating different auto recycling ecosystems
There are essentially two types of auto recyclers out there, but a lot of overlap exists between the two, and even within a business, as the price of scrap, vehicles, and their parts fluctuates.
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