Automobile are a large contributor to this pollution, the problem being two sided: one the one hand vehicles pollute by emitting gasses (older vehicles emitting more gasses), but the recycling process often also pollutes. Vehicles are driven for 20-25 years and then discarded at scrap dealers who scrap the car using outdated and polluting processes. Fluids are often emptyed on the soil, mixing with the aquiferous zones and causing long term environmental hazards.

With the rapidly increasing volume of vehicles in India, there is a parallel need for modern recycling facilities to properly dispose of these vehicles once they reach End-of-Life (EOL). The junkyards in India are full of old vehicles that have no more usability and their number are continuously increasing. In comparison to European countries and some Asian countries like Japan and China, there are no professional modern recycling facilities in India to deal with the disposal of old vehicles.

The Indian government is studying ways to reduce pollution and fulfill its targets agreed on via the COP 21 Emission Treaty. An effective, robust and organized recycling sector is the only way forward towards this goal and automobile recycling facilities will form the backbone of this effort.

On the one side, the IndiaTimes tells us there are 32,46,637 cars in Dehli NCR region.

On the other side, DriveSpark shows us the maximum car age for petrol fueled cars before being recycled is 15 years, while it is 10 years for diesel fueled cars. If we weight this with their sales (61% Petrol and 39% Diesel) , we get an average age of 13.05 years per car.

While this does not take the progression of car sales over the years into account (nor the peak of recycling to be done right now to “catch up” with all cars sold in 2004 and before), it still means there is an average of 2,48,784 cars a year – or 20,732 cars a month to recycle responsibly over the next 13 years – for the Dehli NCR region alone!