Comparative Study of End-of-Life Vehicle Recycling in Australia and Belgium

The increasing complexity of multi-material vehicle designs has created challenges for vehicle recycling. Many countries have implemented different end-of-life vehicles (ELVs) treatment policies and guidelines. For example, the European Commission has set recycling and recovery targets for end-of-life vehicle (ELV). This paper discusses a comparative study on the legislative boundaries and environmental performance of the current ELV recycling processes analysed between recycling companies in Australia and Belgium. It is shown that the strict implementation of the ELV Directive in Belgium has led to better environmental performance, by a factor of 7.9 in comparison to the Australian scenario. The enactment of strict ELV legislation, adoption of advanced recycling technologies, and improvement of the recycling efficiencies of revenue streams are identified as the major influencing factors for a sustainable ELV management system.