IMI Magazine

How cowboys are dodging the scrappage rules

Officially, it's known as 2000/53/EC but only suits in Brussels call it that. You know it better as the End of Life Vehicles Directive (ELV).

When it was enshrined in UK law in 2003 and enforced from 2007, one of the central elements was that a minimum of 85 per cent by weight of each vehicle had to be recycled. Another was the introduction of a mandatory certificate of destruction (CoD), which confirmed a car had been removed from the road and disposed of in an environmentally sound way.

The Government can confidently report to the European Union that the UK is meeting that 85 per cent commitment on the 1m vehicles which are issued with a CoD annually. But with 2m cars a year taken off the road, why is the CoD total so low?

Andy Latham is reputation manager of Bluecycle, one of the UK's leading online vehicle salvage companies, and he's got a pretty good idea. "If you're down the pub and say to your mate that your car has failed its MoT and you want rid of it, he might say he knows someone," explained Latham. "His mate comes along, takes the car away and gets you £50-£100 for it. That's great, easy money for you. But these vehicles should be depolluted as the ELV regulations state and many are not. Some aren't scrapped at all; they're exported to Eastern Europe or Africa, being bodged up and put back on the road."

Owner not liable
No CoD would be issued for the car in this example, but the owner wouldn't be liable. Latham says that's because on the V5C log book there is a 'are you scrapping this car?' tickbox. By filling that in and sending it to the DVLA in Swansea, the owner has done his duty. "It's loopholes like this that are being exploited," said Latham.

Trade organisations like the SMMT are keen to stress that dodgy practices over vehicle disposal do not apply to the government's scrappage scheme. "To claim their part of the rebate, manufacturers have to produce documentation that vehicles have been disposed of through an authorised treatment facility (ATF)," said a spokesman. A Ford dealer added: "We have to obtain a certificate of destruction from an ATF before we get paid by Ford, who in turn claim the money from government."

The ELV regulations have undoubtedly brought many benefits to the automotive industry. The environmental ones, including the creation of ATFs for the safe disposal of hazardous materials, are obvious. But the directive has also increased professionalism, created pan-European standards and forced car makers to build cars that aren't just greener during their life but after it, too.

Vehicles going East
"On the flip side, there have been issues enforcing the standards across Europe, and the opening up of the EU has seen significant numbers of vehicles moving further east where labour costs and standards are lower," argued Latham.

Ian Hetherington, director general of the British Metals Recycling Association, said the directive had been good from a European perspective. "But for the UK - which is the largest producer of ELVs because we alone drive on the left - I have to question whether that's the case. I'm not sure we're recycling any significantly greater proportion of vehicles than we were before ELV.

"In the early 2000s it was 75 per cent, now it's 85 per cent, and it hasn't increased the number of vehicles going to recyclers. That remains at around 2m," he said.

Both Hetherington and Latham claimed the industry would welcome an improved CoD system, which would allow all scrapped cars to be tracked to their final destination.

Currently, only cars and light vans need a CoD, not motorcycles and larger commercial vehicles. "The system also needs to make it clear to owners that they must get a CoD; otherwise it's going to come back to them in terms of enforcement fines," added Latham.

Duncan Wemyss, secretary of the Motor Vehicle Dismantlers Association, agrees and said the day when the only way to scrap a car is via a CoD can't come soon enough. "If that was the case, it would remove a lot of the cowboys from the industry."

A spokeswoman for the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills said the CoD total was rising year on year, and for 2009 is expected to be close to 1.2m. She commented: "It's a fact that a number of vehicles are treated outside the licensed treatment infrastructure, although the Environment Agency (responsible for policing ELV) has run a number of campaigns against the illegal sector to bear down on such activities."

 Bone of contention
The spokeswoman also acknowledged that some vehicles which did go through ATFs weren't properly recorded and attributed part of the problem to the V5C tick-box. "This has been a bone of contention for some time, but the DVLA has undertaken an impact assessment looking at its removal, and we understand it will shortly deliver its findings." The cost implication of replacing all V5Cs is estimated at £30million, which means it's likely to be done on new car V5Cs first and gradually introduced on others as they're replaced.

Environment Agency figures claim a crackdown on illegal ELV and scrap metal operations had closed or brought into line almost half of the 370 known sites in England and Wales in the year to April 2009.

Phil Gibbon, the agency's ELV project manager, commented: "Illegal car scrapyards are a huge problem for the environment. We would rather encourage businesses to act responsibly, which we're doing by providing them with support and advice. But where we need to get tough, we will prosecute operators."

Poor enforcement
But the view at the front line isn't quite so positive. Ross Shekleton is managing director of Metro Metals, a licensed ATF in Burnley, Lancs. He believes poor ELV enforcement is the big problem. "In this industry if you have no licence, you get so many months' grace to get one. If that happens, the Environment Agency sees it as a victory because it's turned an unlicensed operator into a licensed one.

"What it doesn't do is put people out of business quickly enough." That, coupled with inadequate court fines for illegal operators, means the directive is flawed, he claimed. "It's too easy to cut corners, and if one does and gets away with it, others do the same," he argued.

Andy Latham at Bluecycle said that was fair criticism, and also hit out at the physical inspection procedure. "You get young girls turning up at yards with a book under their arm and they haven't got the first clue," he claimed.

The Environment Agency said it was happy to talk to anyone who had concerns about how the ELV directive was enforced. 

RICHARD YARROW