Sobering Statistics: How long will it take for your car to decompose?

by Jeremy Korzeniewski Apr 17th, 2009 at 11:52AM

Filed under: Etc., Green Culture, Green Daily

Take a walk through any junkyard in the world and you’re likely to come across any number of vehicles that are a mere rusted-out shell of their former selves. That’s mostly because sheet metal is thin and, as the outer-most skin of an automobile, takes the brunt of the weather’s nastiest beatings. Underneath, it’s a different story entirely.

An article on AOL Autos examines the major bits and pieces of an automobile and offers rough estimates of how long it takes for the average vehicle to rot away, and there are a few surprises. For instance, rubber tires decompose naturally over a fairly reasonable-sounding period of 50 to 80 years. Wait, what’s that? Engine blocks will take at least 500 years to break down? Ouch.

Worse yet are the polyurethane seat cushions under your fine leather interior: they take at least 1,000 years to decompose. The longest-lasting piece of your car, though, is the glass, which never really goes away. It will reportedly take a million years or more before your vehicle’s windshield is ground down to powder.

Fortunately, we generally don’t bury old cars in the ground. Nearly every bit of modern automobiles is recyclable, and automakers have been making serious advancements to bring that figure as close to 100 percent as possible. USCAR says that about 95 percent of vehicles go through the end-of-life recycling process. Still, AOL Auto’s sobering figures should serve to remind us how important it is to properly dispose of used-up vehicular machinery, especially with the advent of government-sponsored scrapping programs.

[Source: AOL Autos | Photo: nico.cavallotto]

Tags: car recycling, car scrapping, CarRecycling, CarScrapping, junk car, JunkCar, recycled car, RecycledCar, scrap car, ScrapCar

Is it more eco-friendly to keep your old car or buy new?

by Jeremy Korzeniewski Jan 15th, 2009 at 8:05PM

Filed under: Green Culture, Green Daily

Here’s a question that often comes up when discussing the green automotive scene: Is it more eco-friendly to keep your old car or to buy a new, more fuel efficient model? The answer is, as you may have guessed, very complicated. One way to attack the question is on carbon emissions, and this is the main tack that Scientific American has taken when analyzing the issue. According to SciAm, due to the emissions created when manufacturing vehicles, you should keep your current car as long as possible, so long as it is in decent running condition and getting reasonably good fuel mileage. Case closed?

Not so fast - while that’s not necessarily the wrong answer, let’s muddy up the waters a bit, shall we? Depending on the year of manufacture, a given car may not be equipped with many modern emissions controls that are standard on current models. Even if a car continues to pass its emissions testing, it is generally only required to meet the standards that were in place when it was new, and those requirements have gotten much more strict in the past few years.

Scrapping a car, as pointed out by SciAm, isn’t a particularly green option, though retrofitting modern emissions equipment is tough. A conversion to electric sounds like a nice option, but then you must consider where the electricity is coming from. As you can see, this is anything but a cut-and-dry answer, and it depends largely on what green aspect you consider most important. To keep or to buy new, that is the question. Thanks for the tip, Micah!

[Source: Scientific American]

Tags: junk car, JunkCar, old car, old car emissions, OldCar, OldCarEmissions, scrap car, scrap cars, scrap yard, ScrapCar, ScrapCars, ScrapYard, used car emissions, UsedCarEmissions