End-of-life vehicles recovery and recycling and the route to comply with EU directive targets

In an attempt to reduce waste originating from end-of-life vehicles (ELVs) which is becoming a serious environmental problem, the European Union enforced in 2000 the End-of-Life Vehicles Directive 2000/53/EC. Each European member state has to comply with the achievement of the following recycling and recovery targets: 80% and 85% by 2006 and increasing to 85% and 95%, respectively, by 2015. The required and achieved recovery and recycling targets for ELVs in Poland in 2011 have been discussed and compared. The data shows that the achieved targets of recovery and recycling were about 82% and 80%, respectively. Therefore, the barrier factors affecting management of ELVs have been identified and the route useful to comply ELVs recovery and recycling in Poland and for other developing countries has been presented. The experience shows that this goal could be achieved by energy recovery and materials recycling of automotive shredder residue.