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Car Recycling Efforts
Environmentally-friendly Car Manufacturing Factories
Animations of the entire process
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Making Cars that Are Environmentally-friendly
Helping to Protect the Environment
Car Recycling Efforts Let's watch an animation
About 3.6 million cars are retired from use every year in Japan!
At Toyota, at least 95% of the weight of each car is recycled.
Toyota Motor Corporation and Toyota Metal have together created the Automobile Recycle Technical Center where research is done in a variety of areas, such as how to make cars which are easy to recycle.
Automobile Recycle Technical Center
Let's take a look at the process which cars go through from the time they are disposed of (End-of-life vehicle - ELV) up until the time they are recycled!
ELV

 About 3.6 million cars are taken by dismantling companies and other people.
Parts Removal

 Dismantling companies break the car down into its different parts. Engines, batteries, bumpers, etc. Parts that can still be used are reused.
Crushing

 After the parts have been removed from the car, it is crushed flat so that it will be easier to recycle.
Shredding



Sorting



 The small, crushed car is shredded into small pieces. The shredded parts are sorted into steel and other metals (aluminum, copper, etc.) as well as automobile shredder residue (ASR) made up of the remaining rubber, plastic, and so on.
Automobile Shredder Residue (ASR)
Recycling facility		 Until now automobile shredder residue (ASR) was buried in landfills, but now car makers take it back and recycle it.
ASR Recycling
Sound-proofing material		 At the company Toyota Metal Co., Ltd., ASR is sorted further to be recycled as sound-proofing material for cars and for other applications.
Toyota thinks as far ahead as how cars will be recycled when they develop cars.
We also use materials that are environmentally friendly.
Development of a car that's easy to dismantle
Making cars with easily removable parts makes them easier to recycle.
The Prius is designed to be dismantled easily.
Markings make it easy to understand
An "Easy to Dismantle" mark placed on specific car parts makes it clear that "dismantling will be easy if the work starts at that point." Using such marks greatly reduces the work time spent on dismantling.
Use of environmentally friendly materials

The materials used in cars should also be environmentally friendly.
The SAI uses a lot of environmentally friendly materials.
Ecological Plastic
“Ecological Plastic” is a plastic material made from plants. Toyota uses a lot of Ecological Plastic in its cars.
The SAI uses Ecological Plastic in about 60% of the surface area inside the vehicle cabin.
Special Info! Why are materials made from plants good?
Plants absorb carbon dioxide as they grow. And because Ecological Plastic is made from plants, it retains the carbon dioxide. Any carbon dioxide that is released when Ecological Plastic is disposed of, is no more than would have been released than if the plants had been left to go through their natural life cycle. That is why Ecological Plastic emits less carbon dioxide during its lifetime—from the time it is made to the time it is thrown away—than plastic made from petroleum. Using Ecological Plastic also saves valuable petroleum resources.
Other interesting materials used
A special plastic that can be recycled countless times is used for the resin parts. This plastic is ideal for recycling because it hardly loses any quality every time it is recycled.
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