EU Parliament: Recycling End-of-Life Vehicles Instead of Sending Them to Landfills

Attention, Design Engineers! EU Parliament Wants Cars Whose Parts Can Be Reused

2026-06-22 Source: dpa 2 min Reading Time

If the European Parliament has its way, parts from end-of-life vehicles will no longer end up in landfills, but will instead be recycled ...

In the future, the European Parliament wants this situation to be only a temporary phase, not a permanent one. That’s because a new regulation stipulates that cars will soon have to be designed so that their individual parts can be removed and reused as easily as possible ...(Image: Scrap King) — In the future, the European Parliament wants this situation to be only a temporary phase, not a permanent one. That’s because a new regulation stipulates that cars will soon have to be designed so that their individual parts can be removed and reused as easily as possible ...
(Image: Scrap King)

According to the European Commission, there are approximately 286 million motor vehicles registered in the EU. Every year, about 6.5 million of them reach the end of their useful life. And for about four million vehicles a year, the authorities apparently have no idea what happens to them after they are deregistered—that is, whether they end up in a scrap press or are exported abroad. From the European Parliament’s perspective, new vehicles should therefore be designed in the future so that as many parts as possible can be removed relatively easily for reuse or proper recycling. A majority of 437 members of the European Parliament thus approved a corresponding regulation in Strasbourg (with 112 votes against and 20 abstentions). Representatives of the Parliament and the member states had already agreed on the new rules regarding this issue back in December. They must now also be ratified by the member states before they take effect two years later.

Car Manufacturers Should Bear the Costs And Expenses

The regulations are intended to ensure that materials such as aluminum, copper, and rare earth elements can be recycled and reused to a greater extent. Some of these materials are mined or processed using complex methods that require significant amounts of energy. This is intended to make Europe less dependent on raw material imports from Asia and, in turn, make the automotive industry more environmentally friendly. In the future, a certain percentage of the plastic in new vehicle models must consist of materials derived from end-of-life vehicles and used auto parts, according to the proposal. According to the Parliament, manufacturers will then also be responsible for the costs of collecting and disposing of end-of-life vehicles within the EU. This obligation will take effect three years after the new rules come into force—that is, likely in 2031. To clarify: end-of-life vehicles are, by definition, no longer repairable and have no historical value. Furthermore, cars that have been declared unfit for use on public roads may no longer be exported after a five-year transition period.

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