A mountain road – VW Recycling for sustainability

Recycling and return at Volkswagen

Is your Volkswagen about to reach its final decommissioning? As a manufacturer, we are aware of our responsibilities and will take back our products once they have reached the end of their service life. Learn more about the recycling process here as well as the legal conditions for a free-of-charge return of end-of-life vehicles and waste electrical and electronic equipment.

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Recycling

Recycling-oriented construction

Sustainability is an integral part of our entire process chain, impacting the product planning, production and recycling of a vehicle. The measures contribute to environmental preservation, for example by helping conserve resources.

Measures implemented during vehicle development

As early as the development stage of your new Volkswagen, measures are taken to ensure that the vehicle can be recycled in an environmentally friendly manner once it reaches the end of its service life.

More about Measures

Recycled materials at Volkswagen

There is a sub-section with the header “Our plastic recycled materials using the example of two models” and there are the Golf 8 and ID.4 models. Please omit the ID.4 model content and change the header “Our plastic recycled materials using the example of the model”.

Our plastic recycled materials using the example of two models

Golf 8

We will explain the use of plastic recycled materials on and in the Golf 8.

More about Recycled materials in the Golf 8

ID.4

Find out here where plastic recycled materials are used in the ID.4 and what proportion they constitute.

More about Recycled materials in the ID.4

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End-of-Life Vehicle Service

Simple and free of charge

Is it time for your Volkswagen to be recycled and re-used? Just bring it to one of our many return centres. It will be recycled for you, free of charge, under the applicable legal conditions.

For a list of locally authorised facilities, please visit https://era.org.mt/topic/permitted-waste-management-facilities/

The recycling process

1. Return

The conditions

It doesn’t matter when your Volkswagen initial registration took place – as of the 1st of January 2007, you can return it free-of-charge to any certified return centre. The following conditions apply for a free-of-charge return:

Your Volkswagen had been registered in the EU at least one month prior to its decommission.
Your Volkswagen is complete, i.e. it has all basic parts and components (including the engine, gears, control units and all other parts).
Your Volkswagen is not full of waste or parts that do not belong to the vehicle.
You return your Volkswagen with the original registration document or an equivalent EU registration document. In return, you will be issued with the certificate of destruction that is required to de-register the vehicle (final decommissioning) at the registration office.

2. Pre-treatment

3. Removal

Following the removal of certain components, they can be immediately re-introduced into the recycling circuit. In the vehicle press, the vehicle is pressed and thus prepared for the shredder.

Catalytic converters are removed in order to recover the precious metals inside them, namely platinum, palladium and rhodium.
Wheels and tyres are removed.
Components and powertrains are removed for use as used replacement parts.
The removal of plastic parts for material recycling depends on the economic framework and the current market demand for recycled materials.

4. Shredder

The remaining pre-treated body is broken down into fist-sized pieces in the shredder and then separated into several material groups according to a multi-level sorting system:

Air-stream sorting
Magnetic separation
Eddy currents

Re-usable scrap metal accounts for 75% of the entire vehicle.

Ferrous and steel materials can be used as raw material for high-quality steel.
Non-ferrous metals, such as copper, aluminium and zinc, are filtered out of the heavy fraction shredder scrap and treated further.
The light fraction shredder scrap contains the seats from your end-of-life vehicle, amongst other parts.

5. Post-shredder technology

The shredder residues (light fraction shredder scrap and non-metal elements of the heavy fraction shredder scrap) still contain valuable organic materials. In post-shredder processes, such as the Volkswagen SiCon process, residues are reduced even further and separated from one another, allowing them to be recycled.

Processed shredder granulate – composed of hard plastics – can be used in steel production as a replacement for heavy oil or coal dust.
Shredder fluff made up of textile fibres and seat foam can replace high-quality coal dust as a de-watering agent for sewage sludge.
Shredder sand composed of glass, rust and paint residue can be used as construction material following additional processing.

Return and recycling of end-of-life electrical and electronic equipment

We will gladly inform you about your rights and duties when disposing of old electrical or electronic devices.

More about Return of end-of-life equipment