El proceso de lectura

pact on the environment throughout its lifecycle has gathered much interest from policymakers and car manufacturers. A standout example is the efforts to im- prove the fuel economy and lower the emissions of new vehicles. Legislators hope that the growing car fleets will consume less fossil fuel- a finite and dwindling resource (Harrington, 1997).

Similarly for ELVs, primary ELV policy drivers include the decrease of ELV- generated waste - particularly the Automotive Shredder Residue (ASR), ending up in scarcer landfills, with the hazardous waste component reduced or elimin- ated, and improving resource recovery (Zoboli, 2000; Staudinger and Keoleian, 2001; Lundqvist, 2004; Joung et al., 2007; Niza et al., 2014). In addition to the sustainability-centric drivers for ELV policies, other drivers include:

ˆ Security and safety: tackling vehicle abandonment (e.g. Nordic countries in the 1970s) and vehicle theft and rebirthing (e.g. the Tuscon Arizona anecdote from 1918).

ˆ Political and legal: such as the politically-motivated response of French auto manufacturers in the 1990s to voluntary agreements in Germany (B¨orkey et al., 1999; Orsatoet al., 2002), and the legal obligations of transposing the European Union (EU) ELV Directive into local state laws (Zoboli, 2000). So far, the EU, the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), Japan, South Korea, China, Taiwan and Russia adopted government ELV policies. Targets for better recovery of materials and energy from ELVs and requirements for proper handling and dismantling of ELVs were set and pursued in the EU, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan (Chen, 2006; Wenet al., 2009; Chenet al., 2010; Wilsonet al., 2012; Sakai et al., 2014).

These policies generally fall under either the Extended Producer Responsib- ility (EPR) or Product Stewardship (PS) frameworks. EPR accords the primary responsibility to the producer for the reuse, recycling or disposal of a product. PS, by contrast, introduces the concept of shared responsibility of a product throughout its use life cycle among the manufacturers, importers, governments and consumer (Waste Policy Taskforce, 2009).

It is worth pointing that in the 1990s the automotive industries in Germany, France and Spain, among others, voluntary agreements on ELVs (Bontouxet al., 1996; Zoboli, 2000), paving the way for the EU-wide policy (B¨orkey et al., 1999).

Taiwan enacted the “End-of-life Vehicle recycling guidelines” in 1994 to stand- ardise the automotive recycling practice. Then in 1998, the Recycling Fund Man- agement Board (RFMB) was established to oversee the collection of a recycling fee from automotive enterprises (manufacturers and importers) and for providing incentives and subsidies to the public and automotive recyclers for the proper disposal of ELVs. The RFMB also licenses, audits, certifies and accords perform- ance ratings to automotive recyclers (Wen et al., 2009; Chong et al., 2009; Chen et al., 2010). The performance ratings include the output/input of dismantlers (e.g. ELVs or materials processed per worker or per energy unit (kWh), and the amount of energy used per ton of ELV). Taiwan’s approach resulted in a smaller but regulated industry that handles on average 80% of generated ELVs while achieving a 95% recovery/recycling rate on the processed ELVs (Chong et al., 2009; Wen et al., 2009).

Taiwan’s RFMB -the authority overseeing the implementation, collects a re- cycling fee on new vehicles sold from the vehicle manufacturers and importers. The recycling fee depends whether the car meets a green design standard or not (TW$2700 or TW$3800 per new vehicle respectively - equivalent to AU$95-122 and AU$140-170 depending on the AUD-TWD exchange rate(RBA, 2016).). The funds are then used to provide incentives to the public and subsidies to the re- cyclers in the hope to maximise the number of ELVs entering the system and are handled in an environmentally responsible manner (Wen et al., 2009).

Efforts to regulate automotive dismantling are underway in India (CPCB, 2015), Turkey (Cumbul Altay et al., 2011), as well as in Mexico and Vietnam (Toyota, 2014). In Canada, an Environmental Code for the industry (ARC, 2012) has been recently supplemented by provincial regulations in Ontario with other Canadian provinces to follow (OARA, 2016).

The ELV policies vary in terms of the oversight, the metrics used and the designation of the entities responsible for the financial costs of recycling despite sharing similar goals of reducing the environmental impact of ELVs as well as ELV handling requirements such as vehicle depollution and removal of hazardous parts (Sakai et al., 2014).

Numerous comparisons of ELV policies and the respective industries have been conducted, notably (Nakajima and Vanderburg, 2005; ERIA, 2009; Che et al., 2011; Harraz and Galal, 2011; Wilson et al., 2012; Azmi et al., 2013; Sakai et al., 2014). The most prominent approaches, considered best practice remain those followed in the EU and Japan (Hedayati and Subic, 2008) are summarised below. It is important to note that in Australia and since 1997 an industry code

of practice (APRAA, 1999) was pursued by an automotive industry peak body but with limited success (VACC, 2006). This code of practice is explored in detail in Section 2.4.4.

2.2.1

The European Union

The EU ELV Directive, an EPR type policy, addresses critical areas relating to automotive recycling in the vehicle life cycle from the cradle to the grave for vehicles designed for carrying less than nine passengers, and with a gross weight of 3.5t or less:

ˆ Prevention (relative to car manufacturers and associated suppliers): dic- tated limiting the use of hazardous materials in car manufacturing. It also set out provisions for design, dismantling, reuse and recovery. It also encour- aged an increase in the use of recycled materials. Lead, Mercury, Cadmium and Hexavalent Chromium were to be banned by January 1, 2003.

ˆ Collection: provision of an adequate collection system which ensures that all ELV are taken up by authorised treatment facilities. It calls for a deregis- tration process which issues a certificate of destruction for every dropped-off ELV. The last owner of an ELV bares no cost associated with ELV treat- ment, except where main parts, such as engine/transmission, of the vehicle are missing.

ˆ Treatment: the ELV storage and treatment must be environmentally sound which implies regulating the treatment process. The adoption of certified environmental management systems was encouraged.

ˆ Reuse and Recovery: through reuse, recovery and recycling of car parts. The general targets for reuse/recovery were set at 85% by 2006 and 95% by 2015.

ˆ Coding standards and dismantling information: car manufacturers and part-makers must use component and material coding standards to help identify parts that are suitable for reuse and recovery when dismantling the vehicle. Car manufacturers must also provide dismantling information on new models and the location of hazardous materials and make the inform- ation available to authorised dismantling businesses.

Most member nations of the European Union transposed the directive into local laws with slight variations to recycling goals and zero liability to the consumer condition and reporting frameworks (Fergusson, 2006). However, the policy ad- option and enactment process was slow despite that some countries already had laws or voluntary industrial agreements that dealt with the ELV predicament (Zoboli, 2000); furthermore, the implementation proved problematic in regards to measurement of recycling and recovery rates as well as on collection of associ- ated statistics throughout the reverse supply chain (Lucas, 2001).

2.2.2

Japan

The Japanese Automobile Recycling Law in 2002 came in effect in January 2005. The law, which is a PS policy, covers all forms of four-wheeled vehicles irrespective of size or weight. Under the law, car manufacturers are responsible for handling the ASR, fluorocarbons, and airbags generated from ELV dismantling and shred- ding. Vehicle owners bear the cost of ELV treatment via a fee collected at the time of new car purchase or at the time of vehicle inspection for older vehicles.

The Japanese law places heavy emphasis on the information management required for funding and reporting purposes. The law also set the ASR recycling targets to 30%, 50%, and 70% to be reached by 2005, 2010, and 2015 respectively. Also, 85% of airbags need to be recovered from the total number of ELV treated. It is worthwhile mentioning that several Japanese car manufacturers had by 2009 met or exceeded the 2015 recycling targets (Sakai et al., 2014).