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MOTORINDIA
l
September 2012
Urgent need to enforce EU model
ELV directive in India
There is growing awareness
of environmental issues, includ-
ing pollution and recyclability of
manufactured goods. One of the
biggest polluters has been used
cars disposed at junk yards. In
order to tackle this issue, the Eu-
ropean Union (EU) has taken an
initiative to address these issues
by enforcing an End-of-Life Ve-
hicles (ELV) directive which fo-
cuses on reducing the hazardous
substances and improving the re-
cyclability of the car.
The ELV directive also requires
OEM and other stake-holders to
establish several collection cent-
ers to collect old cars and dis-
mantle / recycle as per the direc-
tive listed standards / targets. The
directive requires automotive
manufacturers to prove that their car
meets the recyclability target (95 per
cent by 2015) and restrict the usage
of hazardous chemicals such as Pb,
Cd, Hg and Cr6+.
There is a strong need to have
such kind of Indian ELV directive
to manage the growing automobile
population. A few automotive in-
dustry bodies have been reportedly
working to frame a similar directive
and get it approved by the Indian
Government.
ELV directive 2000/53/EC was is-
sued by the European Union in 2000
with an aim to reduce hazardous
substances such as lead, cadmium,
mercury and hexavalent chromium
in M1 (cars with less than eight pas-
sengers, excluding the driver seat)
and N1 (trucks less than 3.5 ton-
nage GVW) category vehicles. This
directive has also enforced strict
norms on recyclability targets such
as 95 per cent recyclability / recov-
erability by 2015 for all the vehicles
which are placed in the European
market.
The maximum allowable per-
centage for lead, mercury and
hexavalent chromium is 0.1 per
cent and cadmium is 0.01 per
cent by weight. In order to meet
this regulation, OEMs require all
their suppliers to provide detailed
material breakdown analysis re-
ports (Material Data Sheets) on
the parts and assemblies they sup-
ply. OEMs such as Audi, BMW,
Daimler, Ford, Opel, Porsche, VW
and Volvo formed a consortium for
automotive manufacturers to regis-
ter Material Data Sheets of all their
products in an online database called
the International Material Data Sys-
tem (IMDS). The rest of the OEMs
and suppliers gradually joined the
group. Now it has more than 55
OEMs and all of their suppliers.
In this IMDS database, every sup-
technology
Focus on pollution control, vehicle recyclability
By P. Parthasarathy, President ES, APA Engineering
Mr. P. Parthasarathy
Japan, Korea and China have en-
forced legislations similar to ELV
directive 2000/53/EC, while many
automotive OEMS in North America
are voluntarily following the EU ELV
directive which also requires setting
up of recycling infrastructure and
collection centers to collect the End of
Life vehicles from the end consumers.