Recycling is a no brainer. Recycling metal takes 25% less energy than producing new metals from ores and that ignores the fact that the ore needs to be mined. Did you know that about 75% of a car can be recycled!
That is good news for the environment. We recycle as much steel each year as the car industry uses. No other industry has such a good recycling rate. This is great news as the steel used in cars, usually contains 25% of recycled materials. This recycled steel saves lots of energy, and lots of damage to the environment caused by mining iron ore. The iron ore needs 1/2 its weight in coal to be burnt in the process of turning it into iron. This coal does not need to be mined or used! The efforts of the car recycling industry help ensure that steel is the most recycled product we have. Steel is pretty unique, as it can be recycled over and over again
Batteries can be broken down into their core components - lead, sulphuric acid and plastics. All these components can be recycled, reducing the need for producing them in the first place. More importantly, these dangerous chemicals are kept from polluting the environment
Cars do contain some real nasty substances - such as mercury, found in switches and ABS systems. The UK car recycling industry recovers these substances from cars, preventing them form being released into he environment
The fluids in cars get recycled too. Oil can be cleaned, re-refined and turned back into "new oil" which can be used as fuel. Oil is a dreadful contaminant, and every effort needs to be made to keep it from the water table, or water supplies. A little oil can contaminate a lot of water. Ethylene glycol - found in anti-freeze can be filtered, and distilled, treated and re-used
We used to incinerate old tyres, causing additional pollution. Nowadays, tyres are recycled into a product used in adhesives for tiles or blended with road materials such as asphalt. A new use is in insulation materials, and in the springy materials used for matting in playgrounds. Tyres are even recycled into carpet underlay
So you see, getting cash for your scrap car is not the only benefit of recycling a car, the environment benefits too.