Established in Kaohsiung more than 20 years ago, Taiwan's largest vehicle shredding plant enables over 80% of each scrapped car to be recycled.
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00:00 This is the final destination for this old vehicle.
00:08 And in moments, it's crushed.
00:11 It's part of the recycling process at this vehicle shredding plant in Kaohsiung in southern
00:15 Taiwan.
00:16 "What we do right now is shredding the cars and separating all the material to be pure
00:24 raw material.
00:25 And then to use them to later other factories to use that to have the good quality of the
00:33 products."
00:34 The facility has been around more than two decades and occupies over 20,000 square meters,
00:41 making it the first and the biggest private vehicle collecting, recycling and shredding
00:45 plant in Taiwan.
00:47 As you can see behind me, there are around 200 to 300 vehicles ready to be recycled.
00:52 From the arrival of each car to dismantling and shredding it, it takes around two hours.
00:57 By the end of the day, over 80 percent of each vehicle can be reused.
01:02 And that's quite the improvement from before.
01:05 The company says 20 years ago, only around two-thirds of a vehicle could be reused.
01:11 The process at the plant is pretty simple, which takes up to 10 minutes.
01:15 "At this stage, we have dismantled the tires, the battery, the lubricant and the cooling
01:22 system.
01:23 Now we are dismantling the engine."
01:30 The parts salvaged from the vehicle can be sold for reuse, often for a good price.
01:35 The rest of the car then heads to the shredder.
01:37 This machine, assembled in Taiwan with parts from Germany, can shred 200 tons per day.
01:43 "This is the waste produced after the vehicle is dismantled.
01:52 This waste is accumulated during the dismantling process.
01:56 The lighter waste is stored here.
02:02 The heavier waste is collected from the back of the shredder and stored in the waste storage area."
02:12 The factory says their method can turn a car into 98 percent pure raw material.
02:17 "After the car is processed through our shredder, it can be recycled without a lot of metal.
02:24 For Taiwan, where metal mining is limited, these resources are very important to us."
02:33 Taiwan alone scraps around 400,000 cars a year.
02:36 This volume of vehicle waste can pose problems for the environment if not managed well.
02:41 "The first problem is environmental protection.
02:44 If the vehicle is abandoned, it can easily cause pollution.
02:48 If there is even some oil in the vehicle, it can damage the environment."
02:58 Taiwan now has almost 300 recycling factories, but only four are equipped to shred old cars.
03:05 That's enough, the Environment Ministry says, and Taiwan's largest vehicle recycling plant
03:10 is hoping to become even more efficient by 2027, with a goal to reuse over 95 percent
03:16 of each scrapped vehicle, transforming discarded materials into valuable resources.
03:23 Alex Chen and Danny Chee for Taiwan Plus.
03:25 It looks like it could be...