Mar 14 - Portugal’s Lax Regulating Over Scrap Car Trading May See an End

Environment Daily reports that Portugal’s scrap recyclers are in a heap of trouble. Allegedly two-thirds of end-of-life vehicles are being scrapped illegally, according to critics of government. 

Inadequate regulation by Portuguese authorities is allowing an illegal trade in used car parts and numerous illegal car-breaking facilities to operate, resulting in negative impacts on soil, air and water pollution levels, according to industry and NGO critics.

Figures provided by Valorcar, the authorized vehicle dismantlers association, show that only 6,588 end-of-life vehicles were disposed of through authorized facilities in the second half of 2005, compared with an estimated total of around 22,000 vehicles scrapped in the same period.

Read complete article here

CAW sponsored AB 1240 (Levine), which would have required all automobile manufacturers who sell vehicles in this state to establish, set up, and finance a program to incentivize all auto dismantlers to remove mercury switches and turn them in for recycling/safe disposal. Though this measure failed passed into state law, Assemblymember Lloyd Levine, the Alliance of Auto Manufacturers, the State of California Auto Dismantler Alliance, and CAW are reaching a tentative agreement on a voluntary mercury switch program. Read more here

Lanh Nguyen