The recycling dilemma for advanced materials use: Automobile materials substitution

Journal Article · Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 1991 · Materials and Society; (United States)

OSTI ID:5419459

Field, III, F R; Clark, J P ^[1]

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1. Massachusetts Inst. of Tech., Cambridge (United States)

This paper discusses the difficulties associated with imposing recycling imperatives upon advanced materials development by examining the case of automotive materials substitution and its impacts upon the recyclability of the automobile. Parallels are drawn between today's issues, which focus upon the recyclability of the increasing polymeric fraction in automobile shredder fluff, and the junked automobile problem of the 1960's, when the problem of abandoned automobiles became a part of the environmental and legislative agenda in the US and overseas. In the 1960's, both the source and the resolution of the junk automobile problem arose through a confluence of technological and economic factors, rather than through any set of regulatory influences. The rise of electric arc furnace steelmaking and the development of the automobile shredder were sufficient to virtually eliminate the problem - so much so that today's problems are incorrectly viewed as novelties. Today's automobile recycling problem again derives from technological and economic factors, but regulatory influences have spurred some of them. While there are no lack of technological solutions to the problem of automobile shredder fluff, none of these solutions yet provides scrap processors with the kind of profit opportunity necessary to implement them. In some ways, it is implicit in advanced materials markets that there is little to no demand for recycled forms of these materials, and, in the absence of these markets, there are few reasons to expect that the solution to today's problems will be quite so neat.

• OSTI ID: 5419459
• Journal Information: Materials and Society; (United States), Vol. 15:2; ISSN 0146-6399
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION
29 ENERGY PLANNING
POLICY AND ECONOMY
AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY
MATERIAL SUBSTITUTION
ALUMINIUM
ARC FURNACES
AUTOMOBILES
BUSES
COMPILED DATA
COMPOSITE MATERIALS
COST
ECONOMIC IMPACT
GLASS
IMPURITIES
INDUSTRIAL WASTES
MARKET
MATERIALS TESTING
METAL INDUSTRY
PLASTICS
POLYMERS
PROFITS
RECYCLING
SCRAP METALS
SHREDDERS
STEELS
SURVEYS
TECHNOLOGY IMPACTS
TRUCKS
ZINC
ALLOYS
DATA
ELECTRIC FURNACES
ELEMENTS
EQUIPMENT
FURNACES
INDUSTRY
INFORMATION
IRON ALLOYS
IRON BASE ALLOYS
MATERIALS
MATERIALS HANDLING EQUIPMENT
METALS
NUMERICAL DATA
PETROCHEMICALS
PETROLEUM PRODUCTS
SCRAP
SOLID WASTES
SYNTHETIC MATERIALS
TESTING
TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS
VEHICLES
WASTES
320302* - Energy Conservation
Consumption
& Utilization- Industrial & Agricultural Processes- Materials
290300 - Energy Planning & Policy- Environment
Health
& Safety