The scrapyard can be seen as a starting point for new life. It's a place where old cars are already dismantled into individual parts and separated as much as possible according to their different materials. Unfortunately, these materials do not find their way back into vehicle production – at least not yet. The Car2Car research project, which involves the Technical University of Munich, the car manufacturer BMW and steel manufacturers such as Aurubis and Thyssen-Krupp, wants to find out whether bits of aluminum, steel, glass, copper and plastic can be filtered out and sorted by type for reuse in car manufacturing. The aim is to create a type of endless cycle for car bodies and the like.
The industry is expecting a number of benefits from this ambitious project. Firstly, it will enable suppliers and manufacturers to secure their access to important materials they would otherwise have to procure through complex and vulnerable channels. In addition, eliminating the need to tap into fresh raw materials for every new vehicle will benefit the environment. “A stronger circular economy that conserves and recycles resources is an important step toward climate neutrality, and it secures supply chains at the same time,” said Michael Kellner, Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy and a member of the Green Party, at the launch of the Car2Car project in spring 2023.
EU hoping to decouple economic growth from resource consumption
It's not just in vehicle manufacturing that companies are working harder and harder to extend the useful life of various materials. When one component breaks, that shouldn't mean having to throw the entire product away. And when an item is discarded, its individual parts should continue to be used. Ideally, this turns one-way streets – meaning from production to the waste incineration plant – into closed cycles. However, this is still the exception. In the EU, less than twelve percent of used materials are currently reused; Germany is only just above that average. The EU has therefore set an ambitious goal: By 2030, 23.4 percent of the materials processed within its borders should consist of secondary raw materials.
A mammoth task for politics and society alike, as processes that have taken shape over decades will have to change. “The topic is so huge that no one can manage it in their own individual space,” says Carsten Gerhardt. As managing director of the Circular Valley initiative, he is bringing together corporations, SMEs and start-ups and creating networks with the realm of politics. Meanwhile, the terms in this field are shifting. For a long time, “recycling” covered a whole host of aspects. The buzzword “circular economy” also refers to the recovery of materials, but includes avoiding and reusing waste, as well.