French automaker Renault has announced plans to develop a recycling program for cars. The manufacturer has partnered with Sita, a waste-management company, to cash in on what Dow Jones Newswires called “the fast-growing market for end of life vehicle treatment, a sector whose potential has been enhanced by the steady rise in prices of raw materials such as plastics and steel.”
The market for these materials will likely continue to grow under the EU’s new rules about car recycling: by 2015, 95% of a vehicle’s mass must be recyclable. Currently, 85% is the standard for both passenger and commercial models.
The scheme may help keep old clunkers from rusting in junkyards, but it doesn’t make a dent in the carbon emissions they produce on the road. Before we recycle, why not reduce? Sita’s plans look to us like a green band-aid on a gaping wound (read: sticky and ineffectual). Sure, recycling is nice. But wouldn’t it be better not to waste or pollute in the first place? The plan sounds good (and “green”), but it fails to address the real source of this ecological problem.
Photo via flickr by :::Billie/PartsnPieces::: & amchu
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