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, batteries, and waste electrical and electronic equipment.

A road above a body of water leading into the mountains

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

Our goal is to reduce our consumption of new raw materials. To this end, we use recycled materials when manufacturing our vehicles, e.g. plastic recycled materials that are made of waste or scrap material from production. They make up a small part of the new vehicle.

Consistent quality

Whether they are new products or recycled materials, all of our components meet our high standards. We only use high-quality recycled materials which are subject to rigorous testing before being deployed.

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

A VW ID.4 parked on a track with a misty mountain background

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

Rays of sunlight break through the leaves of a tree

Our end-of-life recycling service

Simple and free of charge

Is it time for your Volkswagen to be recycled and re-used? Just call 0800 542 2002 or visit www.rewardingrecycling.co.uk to arrange collection or to deliver it to one of our many return centres.

From here it will be recycled for you, free of charge (terms and coditions apply).

The recycling process

There are five steps to the end-of-life process:

Return
Pre-treatment
Removal
Shredding
Post-shredding

1. Return

Conditions for free-of-charge recycling

The following conditions apply for a free-of-charge recycling:

Your Volkswagen is complete, i.e. it has all basic parts and components (including the engine, bodywork, transmission, catalytic converter (if originally fitted), major interior components such as seats, battery and wheels). Your vehicle does not have to be drivable nor does the engine have to run in order for it to be "complete".
Your Volkswagen does not contain waste or parts that do not belong to the vehicle.
You return your Volkswagen with the original registration document if available. You can then be issued with a certificate of destruction that is required to de-register the vehicle at the DVLA.

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 batteries

Batteries do not belong in household waste. Learn here about what to do with end-of-life batteries.

More about Return of batteries

Industrial Batteries

As a producer of industrial batteries under the Waste Batteries and Accumulators Regulations 2009, Volkswagen produce NiMH, Li-Ion and lead-acid industrial batteries. We are obliged to take back free of charge, waste industrial batteries supplied to an end user for treatment and recycling. We are required to do this in any calendar year we place new industrial batteries on the market. If any of our customers or in certain cases other end users, require us to take back Industrial batteries, they should contact us at environment@vwg.co.uk. We will agree the necessary arrangements for the return, proper treatment and recycling of the waste industrial batteries.

Automotive batteries

As a producer of automotive batteries under the Waste Batteries and Accumulators Regulations 2009, we Volkswagen are obliged to collect, free of charge and within a reasonable time, waste automotive batteries for treatment and recycling from final holders e.g. garages, scrap yards, end-of-life vehicle Authorised Treatment Facilities, Civic Amenity Sites, etc. We are required to do this in any calendar year we place new automotive batteries on the market.

If you require us to take back any automotive batteries, please contact us at environment@vwg.co.uk. We will agree the necessary arrangements for the collection, proper treatment and recycling of the waste automotive batteries.