Designing for recycling
The instrument panel (IP) with its variety of materials is one of the most difficult parts of the automobile to recycle. Selection of materials to minimize material count and maximize separability is critical to cost-effective IP recycling. Choices of assembly and disassembly techniques also should consider recycling. Current practices for recycling automobiles focus on the recovery of usable parts and metals with other materials becoming landfill. New design practices or significant developments in recovery technology must occur to reduce the volume of landfill materials. Design practices will be most effective if they allow cost-effective recovery of desired materials from the plastic components before shredding. Recovery technology continues to improve, but most parts are shredded with the car and land-filled as automotive shredder residue (ASR). Shredding followed by mechanical separation conceptually is the most cost-effective option, but the typical instrument panel contains six or more plastic materials. This makes separation difficult and expensive to get acceptable material yields and purity.
- OSTI ID:
- 544152
- Journal Information:
- Automotive Engineering, Vol. 105, Issue 8; Other Information: PBD: Aug 1997
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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