India has always been a decade behind the developed countries USA, China, Europe. Take for instance, the Internet was introduced in US, Europe during the 1980’s but only in 1995 did India get introduced to this concept. Similarly, auto-recylcing has existed for over a decade among the developed countries including US, Europe & China but the major question is will India rise with them or rise above all?
- Why Auto Recycling is Catching Pace in India?
National green tribunal (NGT) has given out orders to de-register 10-15 years old diesel vehicles from the capital, Delhi. NGT also clarifies that these vehicles can’t be sold anywhere in India and have to be scrapped. NGT has also directed government to speed up vehicle scrapage policy in order to deal with polluting and obsolete vehicles.
The government has drafted a vehicle recycling policy and is trying to implement it by next year. Government proposes to provide an incentive of INR 25,000 for a car, INR 10,000 for a two-wheeler and INR 1, 50,000 for commercial vehicles or a rebate of upto 50% on excise duty on purchase of new vehicles to owners those have submitted their older vehicles for scrapping. This will help recycling to pick up pace.
Auto recycling is successful in US, Europe, Japan, China, Korea
Auto recycling is a common practice followed by developed nations in order to control pollution. Auto recycling is a billion dollar business in these nations. Several schemes are run by the government and auto companies, which prompt people to surrender their old vehicles. For instance popular ‘cash for clunkers’ scheme in US helps them recycle about 12-15 million vehicles every year.
China recycles about 5-6 million cars per year by offering rebates of $450 to $900
Europe: Europe recycles about 9 million cars per year and introduced a scrappage incentive scheme in the 2009 budget whereby scrapping a car more than 10 years old allowed for a £2,000 cash incentive with the money being shared equally between the government and the auto industry.
Japan recycles about 5-6 million per year and introduced a program for 1 year from 1 st April 2009 onwards, offering up to 250,000 yen (USD 2,500) to trade in vehicles 13 years old or more for new environmentally friendly cars.
If India abides by the auto-recycling policy then tentatively 3-4 million cars could be recycled per year to start with.
| Region | No of Cars Recycled | Policy Since | Steel Scrap Generation# |
|
EU |
9 million |
2000 |
102 |
|
US |
12-15 million |
2009 |
66 |
|
Japan |
5-6 million |
2005 |
41 |
|
China |
5-6 million |
2008 |
81 |
|
India |
3-4 million* |
Yet to Come |
16-17 |
Source: BIR (Bureau of International Recycling)
#Steel scrap generation in million tonnes (MnT) in 2015
* Potential
India is a Virgin Market
India is truly a virgin market for auto recycling. According to estimates by Indian government, close to 28 million vehicles are eligible to be recycled. Out of which 70-75% are two wheelers and rest are three and four wheelers.
India’s future in recycling looks bright as studies show that by the next decade the vehicle density in India would grow from 20 to every 1000 people to 65 to every 1000 thus estimating roughly a growth of 6.7% as compared to China’s which grows around 5.7% per year. India will eventually become third largest automobile market in coming years, according to industry reports.
India imports about 5-6 million tonnes of steel scrap, 0.8 million tonnes of aluminum scrap and 60,000 MT of copper scrap. Dependence on importing these metal scrap can be reduced by recycling vehicles in our own country. This will also open up several avenues for new businesses in India.
Auto-recycling will also help conserve about 2,500 kilograms of iron ore, 1400 kilograms of coal, 125 tonnes of limestone, reduce the release of 1000 kilograms of carbon dioxide, and save more than 1 MW of energy.
With proper awareness of the situation at hand and the government trying to take various measures with incentives, even if today is the day for China or the US then the future for India is looking bright!
Leave a Reply