Nissan drives new gains in vehicle recycling in Japan

Nissan Motor Co says its recycling/recovery efforts in Japan for fiscal year 2013 are paying off. The company recently announced its recovery results for Automobile Shredder Residue (ASR), airbag-related products, and fluorocarbons recovered from end-of-life vehicles (ELVs) in accordance with the Japan Automobile Recycling Law.

In FY2013, Nissan recovered 112,507.2 tonnes of the 115,741.4 tonnes of ASR collected from 533,836 vehicles in Japan – an amount that represents a recovery ratio of 97.2 percent – which achieves the Japan Automobile Recycling law ASR recovery target rate of 70 percent by FY2015 for eight consecutive years. The recovery ratio for ELVs (actual value) stands at 99.5 percent. The company also reduced the amount of ASR-related landfill and incineration disposal to zero and participated in a trial of recycling ASR, with an advanced method of sorting ASR and process them as resources.

Nissan says it recovered 1,603,679 airbag-related products from 445,635 vehicles through recovery processing and on-board deployment operations. The airbag recycling ratio stood at 94.1 percent, exceeding the legal requirement of 85 percent. A total of 138,602.149 kg of fluorocarbons collected from 490,825 vehicles was processed.

The cost of the recycling efforts for these specified materials amounted to 5,400,091,730 yen. Recycling fees and income generated from the fund for vehicle recycling totaled 6,286,540,805 yen, contributing to a net surplus of 886,449,075 yen. From FY2004 to FY2013, the total cost of recycling operations led to a net surplus of 2,987,067,988 yen, an amount that is equivalent to 560 yen per vehicle. For the mid- and long-term forecast, Nissan anticipates the cost of recycling operations to stabilise.

Consistent with the Nissan Green Program 2016, the company's mid-term environmental plan, Nissan will continue efforts to improve its ELV recycling actions to achieve a top-level ELV recovery rate in Japan. With active utilization of ASR recycling facilities, Nissan says it will continue to work toward achieving an ASR recovery ratio of 100 percent.

Photograph: Recycled material parts of the Nissan Leaf EV.