Abstract
With economic development and accelerated industrialization, resource consumption has seen rapid increase. Against such a consumer boom, vehicle ownership has rocketed up, which also brings surging numbers of end-of-life vehicles (ELVs). Thus, recycling and disposing those ELVs turn out to be a head-scratching issue. As a result, how to effectively collect, dismantle, and recycling ELVs grows into a global topic. In China, over the past two decades, the Chinese vehicle ownership had grown rapidly to 261.5 million in 2019. Likewise, the ELV recycling industry in China also faces mounting challenges, especially in policy-making, recycling system, and the remanufacturing industry. The key challenges in the sector are the loss of ELVs and illegal dismantling. In recent years, despite the emergency of a group of large-scale quality dismantling enterprises, the overall technological level in the industry and the recycling rate require further advancement. In contrast, countries with highly mature automobile industry have seen a different image. Japan, for instance, has been the pioneer in the field of ELV recycling, created well-rounded laws and regulations on the industry, and developed advanced know-hows to cope with technical challenges. Therefore, this study, firstly, tries to summarize the laws and regulations and the latest industrial status of ELVs recycling in China and Japan. The deviation, if any, shall be analyzed between Japan‘s existing system and policy design, and the possible causes. Secondly, the Material Flow Analysis (MFA) method is adopted to analyse the changes of Resource Input Intensity (RII) of steel and oil for vehicles over the past 10 years, which shall provide the basis for future research on material recycling and waste treatment. Thirdly, the overall recycling rate of China's automobile products is analyzed, with the prediction that as technologies advance and related policies evolve, the recycling rate shall increase from 90 to 98% within 5 years. Fourthly, against the backdrop of circular economy development, this paper tries to provide an enlightenment to ELVs recycling management in China and Asian countries, with the stage of social development, policy system, social awareness of resource recycling, market guidance and other factors combined in the research. As a whole, this study tries to facilitate the sustainable development of the ELV recycling industry, provides support for the policy-making, and contributes to the building of a resource-saving and recycling-oriented society.
Highlights
Thanks to the advancement of the automobile industry and the upsurge of vehicle ownership, End-of-life Vehicles (ELVs) has surged (Kanari et al, 2003; Soo et al, 2021)
On top of the aforementioned laws and regulations, Japan has implemented such laws as Waste Disposal Law, Fluorocarbons Recovery and Destruction Law, and Law for the Promotion of Effective Utilization of Resources, regarding the automobile industry. It is the End-of-Life Vehicle Recycling Act (MOEJ) (2002) that makes all the difference (Ministry of Economy, 2002) which was officially put into effect on January 1, 2005
To deal with the issues in the ELVs recycling sector in 2019, the State Council passed the newly revised Measures for Administration of Recycling of End-of-life Vehicles, which have made adjustment of the following aspects targeting the incompatibility between the management system and the industry’s needs (State Council of China, 2019): 1) Selling “five assemblies” of ELVs has been permitted to remanufacturing enterprises to improve resources recycling rate
Summary
Thanks to the advancement of the automobile industry and the upsurge of vehicle ownership, End-of-life Vehicles (ELVs) has surged (Kanari et al, 2003; Soo et al, 2021). On top of the aforementioned laws and regulations, Japan has implemented such laws as Waste Disposal Law, Fluorocarbons Recovery and Destruction Law, and Law for the Promotion of Effective Utilization of Resources, regarding the automobile industry It is the End-of-Life Vehicle Recycling Act (MOEJ) (2002) that makes all the difference (Ministry of Economy, 2002) which was officially put into effect on January 1, 2005. To deal with the issues in the ELVs recycling sector in 2019, the State Council passed the newly revised Measures for Administration of Recycling of End-of-life Vehicles, which have made adjustment of the following aspects targeting the incompatibility between the management system and the industry’s needs (State Council of China, 2019): 1) Selling “five assemblies” of ELVs has been permitted to remanufacturing enterprises to improve resources recycling rate. The transformation of social awareness takes the efforts of one generation or even several generations
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