Is the Australian Automotive Recycling Industry Heading towards a Global Circular Economy? – A Case Study on Vehicle Doors

The increasing use of lightweight materials and multi-material concepts in vehicle design has create challenges for traditional vehicle recycling. This has consequently caused the increasing contamination rate for valuable recovered materials, and increasing plastic materials being landfilled for end-of-life vehicles in Australia. A life cycle comparative analysis will be carried out based on the car door material audits for different vehicle age and model. The paper shows that the trend in vehicle design has improved the environmental impact in use phase; however, it has led to the exhaustive use of natural resources due to the down-cycling impact, hindering a sustainable global circular economy based on the Australian case scenario.