The government has plans to make scrapping cars a quick and easy procedure for local councils. That’s good. But we sincerely feel there’s an opportunity here for some real beneficial.
Sure, a lot of the cars that have been abandoned are just old rust buckets that have no value, even as scrap metal.
But think about how many of these are husks of classic cars. Old projects that were left to rot when the owners overshot their budgets. Cars that were passed down to sons who emigrated or had no interest in older vehicles. Classics that mechanics threw aside when owners failed to settle their bills.
Think about what a waste it would be to merely recycle the steel and plastics in these kinds of cars.
Imagine if a mechanism was set up to auction off certain valuable abandoned cars for their parts.
The local councils could use the money raised from these auctions. Restorers, mechanics and chop-shop businesses would have a new source of cheap parts. Society in general would be better off as the parts salvaged would go into keeping older cars running (rather than consuming resources to create new cars. Reusing is healthier for the environment than recycling.)
Think about it, if someone abandons a ten year old E-Class because they couldn’t afford to replace the fuel injectors, there’s still 1000s of parts that can be used in another 10 year old E-Class. The local council can easily make some money off the auction of those parts. The only parties that might oppose this move is OEM part suppliers.
Again, we’re not saying do this for every abandoned rust bucket. Just for the cars that can be salvaged.
In the one month notice served to owners of abandoned cars, if this program is pointed out, the owners themselves could at least weigh the opportunity cost involved with letting a car be scrapped.
As it is, many opportunists are already stealing the rims off older, abandoned cars with the same line of thinking.
