Senior Reporter
dareece.polo@guardian.co.tt
KITAKYUSHU – Japan’s automotive recycling industry is turning end-of-life vehicles into valuable industrial resources, but Trinidad and Tobago’s automotive dealers say the economics could make such a model difficult to replicate at home.
This was revealed during a tour of Kitakyushu last Tuesday, a city at the forefront of Japan’s environmental and industrial development, where manufacturing has increasingly been paired with technologies designed to reduce waste and recycle resources.
At the West Japan Auto Recycle Co Ltd in Kitakyushu, cars are dismantled, their components separated and materials recovered for reuse.
The privately owned facility can process up to 30,000 vehicles a year, although it currently handles about 6,000.
Chiho Minami, management leader at the Kitakyushu Eco-Town Centre, said through a translator that lower volume is partly due to the growing number of second-hand vehicles in Japan and declining road accidents, meaning fewer vehicles are reaching the end of their useful lives.
The facility operates one processing line, with a single vehicle taking about 45 minutes to move through the process.
But the real value is in what comes out at the other end.
Recovered steel is sold to Nippon Steel Corporation, where it can be used in the production of new vehicles.
“Because the quality is very good, very fine, the price is more expensive than the average price,” said Minami.
The facility achieves a recycling rate of 99 per cent, partly because it has developed a method that eliminates the need for a conventional shredder.
Vehicles are first stripped of refrigerant gas and airbags. Parts suitable for reuse are removed before the remaining materials are separated.
Gasoline is extracted and stored in tanks before being reused to fuel forklifts. Glass and tyres are also recovered for further use, while wiring harnesses are removed because of their copper content.
The process is designed to protect the quality of the recovered steel.
Japan’s system also puts a cost on vehicle recycling.
Depending on the vehicle and the number of airbags, owners pay a recycling fee ranging from 7,000 Japanese yen, about TT$298, to 10,000 yen, about TT$426.
For Trinidad and Tobago, Automotive Dealers Association president Visham Babwah says, the economics present a significant obstacle.
“A recycling plant will struggle in Trinidad because this will be set up for a specific purpose of shipping the recovered materials back to the manufacturers.”
Despite the environmental benefits, Babwah suggested that vehicles are relatively low-value per tonne, while the costs associated with collecting, dismantling, separating, storing and transporting materials can be high.
He also pointed to labour and storage as major expenses, saying recovered materials may not be valuable enough to justify international shipping.
“This is probably the biggest issue with the idea. Suppose you recover a tonne of steel or other material worth relatively little. Shipping that tonne internationally can consume a significant percentage of its value.
“The manufacturer also has little incentive to buy it back simply because it originally came from one of its vehicles.”
Babwah further noted that Japanese manufacturers can often obtain recycled steel, aluminium, copper and plastics from established commodity suppliers closer to their factories, which he said would cost them less.
For now, Minami says, there are no plans for the Kitakyushu operation to expand into other countries. But the technology is attracting international interest, with visitors from countries such as China coming to study the model.
