"Scrapped" doesn't mean crushed and forgotten. UK end-of-life vehicle regulations require a structured recycling process designed to recover as much of the car as possible.
1. Depollution
Before anything else, all fluids — oil, coolant, fuel, brake fluid, air-conditioning refrigerant — are drained and removed, along with the battery and any explosive components like airbags. This step alone prevents a huge amount of environmental contamination.
2. Parts recovery
Reusable parts — engines, gearboxes, alternators, panels, and increasingly EV battery cells — are removed, tested and, where viable, resold into the used parts market.
3. Shredding and material separation
What's left of the shell is shredded, and the resulting material is separated into ferrous metal, non-ferrous metal, and residual waste using magnets, eddy currents and other separation technology.
4. Recycling and reuse
Licensed Authorised Treatment Facilities are required to achieve a minimum 95% reuse and recovery rate across every vehicle processed, with the metal re-entering the supply chain as raw material for new manufacturing.
It's a heavily regulated process precisely because it matters — done properly, an end-of-life vehicle becomes raw material again rather than landfill.