In a joint venture with the Yazaki Corporation, Japanese car giant Toyota has developed the first vehicle wiring harnesses recycling system. The move will see valuable copper being reused in new vehicle construction. 

The move comes as concern grows over the depletion of global mineable copper supplies. Sources suggest these could be exhausted in as little as 40 years, while cost are likely to rise as extraction becomes more challenging. Reacting to this Toyota has partnered with a number of industry leaders to make the recycling of copper from vehicle wiring systems feasible.

Toyota and wiring harness producer Yazaki began working with eight specialist vehicle dismantling businesses in Japan in 2010 on a wide-ranging program that included establishing quality requirements for pre-processing vehicles that have reached the end of their useful life. Previously it had not been possible to recycle harnesses for their copper content using mechanical methods, but just a year later, Toyota came up with a new sorting method that safeguards the metal from contamination by minute impurities during the dismantling process.

Trials were subsequently launched at its Honsha plant in 2013, and after stringent quality checks, the retrieved copper was successfully reintroduced into the vehicle production process.

The technology has delivered recycled metal with 99.96 per cent purity, a level which can secure stable production quality. Toyota estimates as much as 1,000 tonnes of copper can be produced annually using the new process.