Following on from our story in June about Irelands missing vehicles, it seems the UK is having problems of its own. Poor-performing vehicle dismantlers have been warned to expect action after figures showed the UK failed to reach the European target for it to recycle, recover or reuse 85% of end-of-life vehicles for the fourth year running in 2009.

Figures issued to letsrecycle.com by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) indicate that the UK’s end-of-life (ELV) recycling, recovery and reuse rate actually slipped slightly between 2008 and 2009, falling from 84.98% to 84.69%, although it said it was still confident that the UK would meet the 85% goal “in the near future”.

As was the case with the UK’s performance in 2008, BIS again linked much of the UK’s difficulties to problems faced with recovering post-shredder residue – also known as automotive shredder residue (ASR). "As the UK's ELV regime has now been in place for a number of years, the Government is also looking to strengthen the enforcement approach for those companies that fail to meet the target". This is because, while 75% of a vehicle is metal, and therefore easily recoverable through shredding, the remainder, such as plastic, glass and other non-metal components, is far harder to recover.

The issue is particularly acute for authorised treatment facilities (ATFs) – generally vehicle dismantlers – that are not members of one of the two ELV networks, through which vehicle manufacturers meet their obligations to fund the collection and recycling of ELVs.

Despite the UK again falling short of the 85% goal, it is again thought unlikely the European Commission will take action.

The 85% goal is set to increase to 95% in 2015, a target BIS acknowledged was “extremely challenging”, but said it was discussing how to meet it with both individual companies and stakeholder body the ELV Consultation Group.