Breakthrough at the breaker's: A revolution in recycling old cars could render the traditional scrapyard obsolete. Roger Bell reports

The opening of Britain's first dedicated car dismantling and recycling plant marks the start of a new multi-million pound industry - and the beginning of the end of the traditional scrapyard.

There is nothing new about recycling cars. The shredded remains of millions have already seen the inside of a furnace - many more than once. What is different about Bolney Motors, a BMW-backed operation just off the A23 in West Sussex, is that it recycles cars so efficiently and systematically that little is left for wasteful scrap. Its facilities are said to be the most advanced in the world.

Some 3 million tons of automotive waste go to landfill sites every year in Europe. As BMW's recycling expert Horst-Henning Wolf observes, this is not only ecologically unacceptable but also a waste of resources. By 1994, legislation in Germany will make manufacturers responsible for the clean disposal of all the cars they create. Similar cradle-to-grave EC legislation, backed by anti-dumping laws, is expected in 1995 if agreement can be reached on a pan-European strategy.

The purpose-built Bolney plant has the capacity to recycle 2,500 BMWs a year - many of them insurance write-offs. Although this represents only a tiny fraction of the 1.4 million cars scrapped in Britain annually - and the 14 million in Europe - it is the start of something really big. By 1995, BMW will have up to 15 similar plants dotted around the country, capable of handling all 16,000 BMWs scrapped here every year. By then, rival operations are expected to be competing for car carcasses. Dr Wolf believes that market forces should operate between final owners and vehicle dismantlers.

'We are at the leading edge of a new type of business,' says Paul Webb, Bolney's managing director, who concedes that the traditional vehicle dismantling industry - the unsightly car-mountain scrapyards with which spare-part bargain hunters have a love-hate relationship - deserves its poor image. 'Rusting corpses are stripped of parts on an ad hoc basis, often by members of the public, with potentially hazardous fluids left to leak out into the soil, and the rest thrown away anywhere.'

At Bolney, things are different. Following procedures developed in Germany, where BMW already has six recycling plants, cars are first drained of all toxic liquids, such as oil, petrol, coolant, brake fluid and refrigerant. The oil is used to fuel Bolney Motors' heating system. Everything else is recycled or disposed of by specialists. The 'dry' car, mounted on track trolleys, is then systematically stripped until all that is left is a naked body, its decapitated roof cradled in the hull it once covered. Uncontaminated by other materials, the car's shell is sent via the shredder back to the steel mill. 'We get pounds 38 per ton for the steel in this form,' Mr Webb says. Impure 'wet' and plastic-contaminated scrap is worth much less.

All the stripped parts that cannot be used again as they stand are binned for recycling, scrapping or burning as an energy-generating fuel. BMW reckons that a typical 5-series car leaves only 309lb of waste after processing. The car that can be totally recycled is still a long way off, although BMW is getting close with its 3-series - 82 per cent by weight is recyclable. It is aiming for 90 per cent in the medium term.

Glass goes back to the suppliers, non-ferrous metals to the smelters. Much plastic (the granulated residue goes into new parts), foam and upholstery (turned into sound deadening), catalytic converters (their precious metals reclaimable), wiring (stripped for its valuable copper core), even seat padding (which can be used again) has an afterlife.

The challenge facing the motor industry and its suppliers is to make cars easier to dismantle and recycle. Collaboration lies at the heart of the recycling movement. BMW has agreed to dispose of Renaults in Germany if Renault recycles its cars in France.

Salvageable high-value assemblies, such as engines, gearboxes and axles, are cleaned in a giant 'dishwasher' for resale; Bolney Motors has been a mecca for owners seeking relatively inexpensive BMW spare parts for the past 13 years.

Pointing to a four-speed ZF automatic gearbox, Mr Webb said: 'We'd sell that with a 90-day warranty for about pounds 300.' Only the remaining inert, inorganic materials, tyres included, are left as landfill waste.

Cars are not easy to recycle - there are 20,000 parts in a typical mid-range model, and dozens of different materials. Systematic dismantling does not come cheap either.

Depending on how much is to be preserved for resale, the job can take from two to seven hours. To remove a facia with a crowbar is two minutes' work; to take it out undamaged might take an hour. Add transport and investment charges, and the average cost of scrapping a car is about pounds 175.

Many immobile bangers are worth less than that, leaving the last, impecunious owner to pay for disposal - an unlikely (and possibly unfair) scenario without the backing of law. The temptation to dispose of a car prematurely, while it still has some value, could eventually be strong.

Moves in Germany to build into the car's initial price the eventual cost of disposal are dismissed by Dr Wolf as unworkable.

There is also talk of fiscal penalties being levied on owners who dispose of a car without an official 'death certificate'. 'Consumers need to be educated about what to do with old cars,' Mr Webb says.

Although the specialised Bolney operation is tiny, it is a model for the much larger dismantling facilities, capable of recycling any make of car, that will spring up around the country in the next few years. Rover's first pilot plant, developed in co-operation with the Bird Group, is due to open next year.

(Photograph omitted)