How to recycle a car (Yes, a WHOLE car!)

As a cab company, we have a lot of cars around. 45 Toyota Priuses to be exact. These cars work extra hard as they drive around almost constantly day in and day out serving our wonderful customers! All that driving puts a lot of wear on a car and, occasionally, our cars get in accidents too, meaning we have a busy garage keeping as many cars on the road as possible! Sometimes, though, a car dies... As was the case with our cab #15. But even after we can't drive them anymore, we want to make good use of our cabs and make sure they aren't wasting away in a landfill! So we recycled it! You may be wondering, how do you recycle a car? Well I'm glad you asked!

After it was totaled, we kept the car for quite a while and used as many parts as possible for repairs on other cabs. In fact, just the other day, we used the computer module from it for another cab!
After we used as much of the car as we could, we had it hauled away to be recycled.

This is what cab 15 looked like as we had it hauled away:

 

 

 

Can you believe it use to look like this?!

 

In case you are super curious about car-recycling, let me give you a few facts about it to soothe your burning questions!
About 65% of a car is made from steel (which was about all that was left of cab 15 when it was taken). Steel is valuable and can easily be used to make other things when recycled. Recycling steel takes 74% less energy than making new metal. It's then cheaper to buy because new steel doesn't have to be mined! All steel produced today has about 25% recycled steel in it and some products are made entirely of recycled steel! "So in addition to the economic and environmental benefits, recycling cars is a vital link in the world's industrial infrastructure."

Cool facts about the world's largest auto shredder:
"Once cars are crushed, they're shipped off to a recycling center where they are shredded and separated into small pieces, which are then sorted into various metals. The largest shredder in the world is used by Sturgis Iron & Metal of Elkhart, Indiana. The machine is so big, it isn't measured in tons, but acres. It uses an 8,000-horsepower electric motor to drive a massive rotor that spins hammers at 175 mph, reducing six pre-crushed cars per minute into fist-sized metal chunks [Source: Buffalo News]. The shredder is so powerful, the hammers must be turned or replaced almost daily because of the wear and tear they receive, and it sits on special dampeners to prevent seismic vibrations in the surrounding area."

My facts about steel recycling were taken from this article at Howstuffworks.com
Grabianowski, Ed. "How Car Crushers Work" 30 June 2011. HowStuffWorks.com. <http://auto.howstuffworks.com/car-crusher.htm> 31 August 2012.