Unlike traditional vehicles that are exported to end their life a long way from Europe, aluminium-intensive trailers generally spend their entire life on our continent, where they are eventually dismantled with a very high recycling rate.
This has been demonstrated by two studies made by the UTT-Université de technolgie de Troyes (France).
A first study which was realized in 2006 aimed at understanding the fate, the present and future end-of-life treatment of aluminium parts from trucks and trailers used in EU-25. The main output of that project has been a European mass flow model of the aluminium scraps coming form end-of-life commercial vehicles and a list of actors involved in the process.
In a second project, the current end-of-life processing practices were analysed through four actual case studies: one road tractor, one flatbed semi-trailer, one silo semi-trailer and a tipping body. A minimum recycling rate of 95% has been demonstrated.
Download the report the first study (European Mass Flow)
Download the report and annex of the second study (Four case studies).
