Two German recycling associations say their member companies are ready should participants at an early August 2017 “Diesel Summit” recommend a system to offer a financial incentive to scrap diesel vehicles.
The BDSV (German Association of German Steel Recycling and Disposal Companies) and the Association of German Metal Dealers (VDM) have issued a joint statement saying, “If one of the results of the Diesel Summit were the introduction of a scrapping premium for older diesel vehicles, the German end-of-life car [sector] would be well prepared for this.”
Continue the two groups, “Such a program of purchase incentives, discussed in the run-up to the Diesel Summit, for the rapid change of older diesel vehicles to exhaust-gas-free or low-emission vehicles could build on a network of nearly 1,200 certified dismantling companies and more than 50 suitable shredding plants.” Adds the BDSV and VDM, “In these plants, old vehicles are disposed of in an environmentally sound manner. The resulting materials are fed as secondary raw materials to the steel and non-metal producers.”
The diesel scrapping premium would, on the one hand, help to reduce air pollution caused by exhaust fumes and, on the other hand, conserve primary raw materials and energy, thus producing a double benefit for the environment, say the groups.
The German trade groups say their member companies “demonstrated their efficiency” when a similar scrapping premium was introduced in early 2009 as an economic stimulus. At that time, some 2.5 million vehicles older than nine years were scrapped, according to the BDSV and VDM. “Almost all disposal orders were processed by the end of 2010 [and] the recycling industry and the authorities had found pragmatic solutions for the handling of scrapped vehicles,” the two groups state.