Gordon
I would be very surprised if any modern European car contained either
cadmium or mercury, in any form, other than an odd accidental impurity
atom here or there. Lead in car batteries is excluded from this
regulation and is covered in other regulations.
I agree that this is a typical journalistic effort, but can you expect
otherwise in a reportage destined for the grand public and not the
engineering/scientific community? This does not worry me, because it
does increase awareness, which is the all-important holistic need at
this stage.
However, I'll ask you a question. If it costs $160 to recover most of
the metal and plastic in a car for re-use, how much would it cost to win
and purify the equivalent amount of ore and petroleum, to produce the
same quantity of virgin materials? What you may not know is that there
has been considerable recycling of scrap cars in both Europe and the USA
for decades. In the French-speaking part of Switzerland (population
about 2 million plus), for example, the Barec Group, Sirec SA recycles
100,000 tonnes of sheet iron scrap, largely car bodies, (
http://www.barec.ch/News/A_index_news.html ) after their sister company,
Thevenaz-Leduc, has stripped the bodies of all the other scrap metal
(including the mechanical parts) and sorted it for recycling. This is
BIG business, and very profitable, to boot. So the EU directive on
recycling cars is not really going to make any difference in many
countries, because they are doing it already. The only difference will
be the path that the money changes hands. Believe it or not,
Thevenaz-Leduc actually pays garagists for scrap cars (or parts thereof)
it collects!
Brian
"Davy, Gordon" wrote:
>
> The story on the EU directive on cars that Jack Crawford posted (thanks,
> Jack!) is typical in that it failed to identify any problems with lead,
> mercury, and cadmium, other than that cars that are built without them would
> be more "environment friendly" and "conducive to recycling." As usual, it
> was long on implementation details. As usual, the citizens won't be voting
> on the matter, so no need to try to convince them that this is good for
> them. As usual, the reporter just takes a press release and doesn't ask any
> hard questions. The article didn't even discuss how you can have a leadfree
> car battery. Do they exist? How reliable are they? Cadmium is used to
> prevent corrosion. No substitute is known that matches its performance, and
> people have been looking for a long time. How does that impact recycling and
> cost of ownership?
> But what caught my eye was the amount of money that will be involved: DM350
> or 180 euros. That's not pocket change. It seems at least possible that some
> group representing car buyers or sellers might just balk, and demand a
> detailed explanation of what problems this is supposed to solve - something
> more than slogans. Adding this much to the purchase price could have an
> impact on total sales. Of course, the reaction of the Automakers Association
> is simply that the consumers ought to pay for it (which of course they
> will).
>
> Gordon Davy
> Baltimore, MD
> [log in to unmask]
> 410-993-7399
>
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