What happens when I scrap a car at the salvage yard in Brisbane?

Getting rid of your old and unwanted clunker has never in the history of mankind been easier. All you have to do is call a vehicle wrecking company and they will come to your place, buy the thing off you, and then haul it off to their salvage yard to have their wicked way with it. But do you know exactly what it is that they do? Do they just pile all the junk cars that they buy on top of each other the same way we often see in photos of junkyards? Of course, that wouldn’t be any sort of a business model. How do you make money that way? What they do is recycle the vehicle. Here is how:

The Fluids are All Drained

This is an important step on the way to having a car recycled. The fluids need to go first. They can leak out and get into the surrounding environment. This includes such fluids as the brake fluid, power steering fluid, petrol, antifreeze, engine oil, transmission fluid and Freon.

It turns out that the total amount of fluid your general junk vehicle has in it can be anywhere from five to ten gallons. And when this fluid is drained it has to be dealt with properly. It can’t just be dumped. Motor oil can be cleaned and re-used. Antifreeze can be reconditioned and used again. Freon gets used again as a refrigerant. Those are just a few of the fluids that get recycled, but the story is the same for the rest of them.

Used Parts

Scrap cars still have components and parts on them that can be re-used. The team at the scrap yard will remove any and all of the parts that are in good enough condition to be re-used, and they will refurbish them before adding them to their inventory to be sold as second hand parts later on. Parts such as doors, bumpers, wind shield wipers, axels, mirrors and so forth are all fair game.

Recycling Parts

There are parts that can be recycled but not as they are. For instance, if the tyres are bald, you won’t be able to ever use them again. But the material can be shredded and re-used in such things as rubber asphalt for playgrounds. The batteries are also a prime example of a vehicle components that gets recycled. The lead and plastic are both recycled.

Steel

Most of your average car is made up mostly of steel. That steel required a certain amount of energy resources in order to be sourced in its raw state from the earth. Now that the steel is out of the earth, it would be a giant waste if its use as the main material in one car was the extent of its life, and after that it was just disposed of. Recycling it to be used again in more cars and other things means that we don’t have to use the same amount of energy to mine the steel again.

So next time you drive past a car removal Brisbane yards, spare a thought for all the great things the folk that work there are doing.

Glen Hunter is an online marketing consultant, PHP programmer, project manager, writer, blogger & social media enthusiasts.