GLOBAL APPROACH
Since 1994, vehicle manufacturers around the world have been promoting the responsible treatment of end-of-life vehicles (ELV) regardless of where they are used and retired. In all of GM's regions -- Africa, Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America, Middle East and North America -- the goal is to improve the ELV vehicle infrastructure through partnerships. For example, across North America, GM continues to develop new technologies through the Vehicle Recycling Partnership and its recycling infrastructure partners.
In addition to our partnerships, GM continues to design its vehicles to be as recyclable and recoverable as is reasonable, and to implement these designs on vehicles around the world. We have developed global standards on recycling and recoverability in order to gain common benefits across regions.
GM is focusing on recycling-oriented design, utilizing recycled plastics in new vehicle production, as well as working with a network of qualified end-of-life vehicle dismantlers. Thousands of tons of polymeric parts used in GM vehicles are marked for recycling, making recovery of those parts easier at the vehicles’ end-of-life, and increases the potential for landfill avoidance. Recycling old cars will increasingly become an economically feasible part of a car's life cycle as the demand for recycled materials grows. For example, Opel uses more than 30,000 metric tons of re-processed plastics annually. The goal is to successively increase the amount of recycled materials used by optimizing production procedures. In cooperation with medium-sized suppliers, the International Technical Development Center (ITDC) in Russelsheim worked out the requirements for using custom-made recycled materials in the production of headlight housings.
GM was first among U.S. automakers to provide access to vehicle recycling information by posting dismantling manuals on GMAbility.com. GM now has the 2007 dismantling manuals available online.
The manuals provide dismantlers with information on which parts of a vehicle can be recycled and how to remove the part from the vehicle. Currently, around 80 percent by weight of vehicles at end-of-life are recycled.
GM provides all dismantlers in Europe with information on all required pre-treatment steps and mandatory components removal via the International Dismantling Information System (IDIS). This is sent out annually on a DVD, with two interim updates on IDIS' web site. The system encompasses 448 models, representing 48 brands from 25 automakers. All information is available in over 20 languages. By 2015, the proportion of materials from end-of life vehicles that must be reused or recovered is to be increased to 95 percent of vehicle weight. Today GM works together with other automakers on future post-shredder separation technologies (PST) to constantly increase the recycling quota and meet this ambitious goal.
Also, pre-treatment manuals that provide detail for removing automotive fluids and substances of concern are available here.
GM is committed to reducing the use of substances of concern in vehicles. GM's global standard, GMW 3059, is used in all vehicle programs worldwide for handling restricted and reportable substances.
"Environmental Features" brochures are developed for new North American vehicle programs. The brochures highlight examples of environmental performance of the vehicle and identify where it was built. For example, the Saturn Vue uses recycled plastic in the manufacture of the wheelhouse liners which equates to over 959,000 pounds of post-industrial recycled material used each model year. The Chevrolet Impala uses approximately 30 percent recycled material in the front and rear water deflectors. This results in 60 tons of recycled material being used per model year. In the Lansing, Michigan, Grand River Assembly plant, over 90 percent of the purge solvent used for paint line cleaning is recycled. GMAbility.com details environmental features for many GM vehicles.
