EFCTC: ELV (End-of-Life vehicles)
Legislation: Directive 2000/53/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 September 2000 on End-Of Life Vehicles
- http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/en/consleg/main/2000/en_2000L0053_index.html
- http://eur-lex.europa.eu/en/legis/20080601/chap15103030.htm
Waste management and clean technology
The End of Life Vehicles (ELV) Directive came into force on 21 October 2000. Member States should have transposed the Directive into national law by 21 April 2002, but none was able to do this.
The Directive lays down measures which aim, as a first priority, at the prevention of waste from vehicles and, in addition, at the reuse, recycling and other forms of recovery of end-of-life vehicles and their components so as to reduce the disposal of waste, as well as at the improvement in the environmental performance of all the economic operators involved in the life cycle of vehicles and especially the operators directly involved in the treatment of end-of-life vehicles. In particular it:
- Restricts the use of certain heavy metals in the manufacture of new vehicles;
- Introduces a Certificate of Destruction, which triggers the removal of a vehicle from the national vehicle register;
- Requires that certain components are marked to aid recovery and recycling, and that information is provided to facilitate dismantling;
- Requires the establishment of adequate systems for the collection of ELVs, and specifies the site, storage and operating standards that must be met by businesses permitted to treat ELVs;
- Requires that ELVs can only be scrapped (‘treated’) by authorized facilities, which must meet specified environmental treatment standards.