Some readers may have heard that EGARA set up an investigation about cost models. SBR was so friendly to let us use their calculation model that is in use in Sweden for years. We adapted the model so it can be used in the other European countries. Reason to act was a request from the EC about dismantling costs. Until now, only other stakeholders gave figures of dismantling costs, but as the European average company does not exist and because producers have a certain interest (EPR), EGARA felt it would only be good that we as dismantling industry would provide these figures ourselves. EPR costs are important and a topic that is discussed many times.
We started from the point that we only take the in the ELV Directive obliged material removal into consideration. Parts sales and vehicle acquirement are left out to keep the figures clean. Depollution, catalytic converters removal, glass, plastics, costs of waste collection and income from materials are all taken into account. We set the time for dismantling in company costs (which involve more than just labour) per hour next to costs and income to end in a result per ELV.
As a lot of situations in countries differ, we asked to calculate company costs first and we left a free field to explain typical situations. Company costs are higher in North-Eastern Europa than in South-West Europe. But there are also typical differences like distances in Scandinavian countries or even in getting ELV’s at all if not paying for them because of black markets. Not all countries oblige to take of all materials and in some countries, some costs are covered already by EPR systems.
We saw that the time necessary for dismantling varied between 2-3 hours. We see a momentary very high scrap price and very high catalytic converter price. These two factors make most of the results end up positive. But if the scrap price drops to half the current value, all will end up negative. Besides that, cats will not stay as valuable as they are right now. The ceramic monolith cats with a high precious metal content will phase out, leaving smaller metallic cats that contain only a fraction. And these cats will be more difficult to reach than the current ones and take more time. In some countries car owners even remove cats themselves before taking their car to the dismantler.
So what we need to do is to analyse the results and explain what we see. This will be another important part of this investigation, but we need to motivate our points of view so these costs calculations are ideal for this. We will add information of the official metal exchange to prove there’s a conjuncture in scrap metal. We will point out that vehicles are harder to dismantle than they were and it will not be any simpler in the future. We will state that electric vehicles are not going to make our lives easier as they need other requirements in our companies and their typical materials and parts have other value than conventional cars.
So for the ELV Directive review this was a very important exercise. It took a lot of time and we chased some members to get their results. But it’s worth it, because it’s in our benefit that we provide the right information to the EC and to motivate it by real figures. So to all that participated in achieving these numbers; Thanks a lot!
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