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Tonight - The Car Scrap Trap

Last post 11-01-2009, 6:43 PM by Admin. 1 replies.
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  •  10-30-2009, 10:57 PM 885002

    Tonight - The Car Scrap Trap

    A good programme, but it totally failed to notice the way told cars were being scrapped?

    Several shots were shown of the destruction of various cars, and each seemed to pour our fluids ....as the engine was ripped out of the vehicle.
    Is that good for the environment? .....Not really.

    Doing a web search on vehicle destruction I read of that scrap yards who have websites - most are all full of 'how we protect the environment'.


    From their written website text I read ALL cars are supposed to be de-polluted (so all fluids like antifreeze, engine oil, power steering fluid, brake fluid, etc are SUPPOSED to be drained), ....and yet the destruction of the cars filmed were dripping fluid everywhere.

    Something isn't right! Having all this toxic stuff going on the ground, can't be good?


    Call me a cynic but maybe it's because they have so many cars to scrap now (and it takes too long to drain each one) they just rip a few apart as they are anyway, to save time?

    Also...When Tim Hunkin visited a scrapyard when filming the 1990 'Secret life of Machines' TV series for C4, a car was filmed placed in the crusher, but it had been COMPLETLY STRIPPED of everything, only the metal shell remained and that ended up as a square cube of metal.
    In the tonight program, again a car is shown being placed in the crusher, BUT it's got the windows, mirrors, plastic parts and who knows what else still attached??? 
    Surely the older method of stripping down the bare shell was better than crushing up the whole thing.

    If a bare shell of steel is put into a steel furnace, only very little pollution will result as the metal melts, BUT dump one of these unstripped vehicles in - and who knows what happens.

    It seems to me, if you look at it closely the so called 'environmental benefits' of all this ...it doesn't seem to match what actually happens.

     

    By the way the itv.com website is absolutely awful. Obviously designed in London on a very high speed internet connection, but with total disregard for anyone still stuck on a slow connection.

    Just try viewing it on 56k or via GPRS, ......it doesn't work! The only way I've been able to view something (at last) was by trial and error: disabling browser pictures, JAVA and flashplayer, and in total I've wasted half an hour.

    Thanks! I've now just increased my carbon footprint...wasting energy trying to access the ITV website.

  •  11-01-2009, 6:43 PM 885474 in reply to 885002

    Re: Tonight - The Car Scrap Trap

    I have a vehicle recycling plant and i was shocked at what i saw when the engines were being pulled from the cars if the oil and antifreeze has't been taken out then i take it the gases from the air con has also been allowed to escape my company has spent thousands of pounds on de-paluting machines but now i wonder why i even bothered.The latest news going around the motor trade is that some of these cars that have to be crushed are being sold by some breakers yards for export to run on the roads in other countrys.I also own a MOT station and we are seeing cars that are failing mot test on a lot of welding being repaired and being put back on the road because of the shortage of cheap second hand care on the market my garage and yard is in a small Town and since the scrappage scheme started i estimate around 300 cars have gone off the road in our area this is good for the environment but not good for the garages who did the work on these vehicles 300 cars not wanting mot and so no repair work or new parts wanted for them so it also hits the motor factor companys.
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