Mahindra, Maruti and Tata Motors to offer cleaner vehicle recycling

Recycling set-ups are among the unsung heroes of the automotive world and three of India’s carmakers are doing their bit with environment-friendly recycling of end-of-life vehicles. Ajit Dalvi and Mayank Dhingra report.

- Ajit Dalvi and Mayank Dhingra

March 18 was celebrated as Global Recycling Day, a special day when one aims to drive as well as disseminate the message of vitality of the recycling mantra across the world. It is a day to remind corporates, countries, and communities to partner to put Planet Earth first and also to change the mindset of governments, industry and people to see recycling and recyclables as a re-energising resource.

According to the International Energy Agency, the global transportation industry is a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and accounts for about 24 percent of all man-made CO2 emissions. Regulators are addressing this challenge by setting progressive limits on automotive emissions, fuel economy standards or a combination of both.

Another way is vehicle scrappage, which gets rid of old, polluting vehicles on road. This concept has been adopted successfully by several developed markets boosted by a vehicle scrappage policy that is usually mandated by a government. Such a policy also enables dual gains — stimulating the domestic automobile and automotive industry and importantly, removing inefficient, polluting vehicles from the road, paving the way for greener motoring and cleaner air.

The automotive industry, which has a lot of metal on the road globally, is now going all out to prove its mettle when it comes to recycling end-of-life vehicles. And in India, some companies have now taken the lead in this direction.

While it’s a nascent field in the country, the demand for scrapping vehicles arises from the government’s Vehicle Scrappage Policy rolled out in August 2021 that mandates all commercial vehicles older than 15 years and passenger vehicles aged more than 20 years to be scrapped if they fail the road-worthiness test.