It would be nice to chalk up a Green victory for the major US automobile manufacturers. Cars are such an obvious target for criticism when it comes to the environment that it almost – almost – seems unfair to take yet another pop at the companies building 16 million new, distinctly eco-unfriendly metal boxes a year to propel Americans around their congested highways.
It’s therefore with pleasure that we can report that the Vehicle Recycling Partnership, part of the United States Council for Automotive Research, has made the impressive announcement that by volume and by percentage, the automobile is the most recycled product in America. According to the press release, by weight, 84% of each defunct vehicle is rendered into reusable, reused materials that go not just into making new cars, but also into the buildings and furnishings industries.
Greenwashing analysis question no 1: who is making these claims? The USCAR. Who are they?
Um”¦.they’re General Motors, Ford and Chrysler – the first, second and third largest automobile manufacturers in the US. Of course, there’s the argument that if there’s anyone who should be honing their recycling skills, it’s these guys. But improving car recycling methods when you’re still producing hundreds of thousands of units of the old, wasteful models that have suffered such negative publicity? If you want to fill the bath, you really should put the plug in first.
To offset cynical comments like mine, Ford (still producing 80,000 profoundly uneconomical F-series trucks a month) have committed to producing a new type of vehicle comprised of recyclable and biodegradable materials, and to pushing hybrid vehicle production up to 250,000 vehicles a year, or 1/12th of its roughly 6.5 million new cars made per year. Ford has been accused of greenwashing its dirty linen in public more than once over the last few years, so we’ll follow this one with interest”¦
Image: Danno-3