09/10/2025
🚘 ♻️ Driving Circularity in Automotive Plastics
Excited to share a latest publication, "Recycling Disassembled Automotive Plastic Components for New Vehicle Components: Enabling the Automotive Circular Economy," in Recycling MDPI (Special Issue: "Emerging Solutions for a Circular Economy").
🔗 Read the full article here: https://brnw.ch/21wWtLC
Plastics are essential to modern vehicles, but end-of-life disposal presents significant challenges. With U.S. landfill tipping fees averaging $56.80/ton in 2023, plastic disposal could cost the U.S. automotive shredding industry up to $181 million annually.
This study explores dismantling unpainted, exterior plastic components from end-of-life vehicles (ELVs) to recover high-value materials, demonstrating their utility and residual performance for use in new automotive parts.
Recycling these materials reduces landfill dependency, lowers costs, and moves the automotive industry closer to a circular economy—one that reduces waste and conserves resources.
We hope this research sparks conversations about a more efficient future and manufacturing industry!
As the automotive industry increasingly relies on plastic components to meet fuel efficiency and emissions targets, the challenge of managing end-of-life vehicle (ELV) plastics continues to grow. Currently, more than 80% of ELV plastics in the U.S. are landfilled due to limited economic incentives a...
