Environment-friendly way to recycle scrap, reuse resources, and dispose waste
There eventually comes a time when a car is ready for the scrap heap. That’s just the way it goes; sometimes it’s not worth it to spend to repair and maintain an old car.
The question now is: what should you do with it?
For one, don’t just leave it by the side of the road to rot, and definitely don’t stick it in an empty lot for local fauna to swallow up. You’re going to make a lot of motorists (and your neighbors) angry with the former, while the latter is just bad for the environment.
There is now a better way to address these ELVs or End-of-Life Vehicle; the proper term for cars that have gone well past their economic usefulness.
Garaheco by En Tsumugi ELV Dismantler Corporation is the Philippines’ first-ever duly registered auto dismantling facility. It sits on a 1,500-square-meter lot in Mexico, Pampanga, and uses state-of-the-art equipment to safely disassemble a vehicle, recycle scrap, reuse resources, and dispose of waste without burdening or harming the environment.
According to Pao Hung, president of En Tsumugi, Garaheco strictly follows Japanese standards in everything they do. If you’ve been to the country known as the Land of the Rising Sun (also for its tidiness and discipline), you get what he means. But if you haven’t, to put it concisely, everything is ‘clean and green.’ Who teaches them? The answer is Tsuruoka.
So who is Tsuruoka? The better question is, what is Tsuruoka? It is a Japanese auto dismantling company that started collecting/recycling resources as a business. However, it has since expanded into disassembling end-of-life vehicles (ELVs) and processing and selling steel scrap. They have shared their technical expertise with Garaheco and have been on-site over the last few months to monitor and supervise the disposal of the first batch of vehicles during the pilot phase to ensure that operation is efficient, cost-effective, and, more importantly, does not harm the environment.
To get Garaheco started, it received four internal-combustion-engine Toyotas and a Prius hybrid from one of its biggest supporters, Toyota. The Philippines’ number one automaker is backing this project because it satisfied the qualifications under the “Toyota Global 100 Dismantlers Project” within the larger Toyota Environmental Challenge (TEC) 2050 goal of “establishing a recycling-based society and systems.”
If you want to dispose of your old dilapidated ride, sell it to Garaheco. They have a team that will appraise it and make you an offer. If you like the terms, you’ll get paid, and they’ll do all the work. They’ll even have a car retirement report as proof. That’s extra cash for a new car and a fresh parking slot in your garage.
Take a close look at the process, and you’ll notice that Garaheco adds a beneficial closed-loop circular economy to the automotive industry. Buy a car, dispose of it after X number of years, raw materials recycled to make steel for building stuff like new cars/houses/buildings/roads, the environment is safe, and you get extra funds for a new car purchase. After X number of years, do it all over again.
It brings a virtuous cycle to the burgeoning Philippine automotive that sold nearly half a million cars in 2023. While selling that many vehicles is good, the bad news is we do not have an automobile recycling program. At the rate Filipinos are buying vehicles and keeping older ones running, it doesn’t take a lot of math to figure out that these pressing motoring concerns will get worse.
Pollution
Older vehicles emit toxic substances because they are not compliant with the current Euro 4 emissions and fuel standards. This is one significant contributor to the rise in respiratory diseases and other related ailments.
Roadside breakdowns
Despite efforts to keep them roadworthy, older models break down much faster (and more often) than newer ones. It is due to the deterioration and aging of mechanical components, rubber parts, and electrical systems.
After decades of use, moving parts in the engine, transmission, and suspension wear out, and despite faithful after-sales service from the dealership, performance decreases while breakdowns increase.
The older a vehicle gets, the more difficult and expensive it will be to maintain.
Another thing the Philippines does not have (yet) is a phase-out program for older vehicles. We keep adding (cars on the road) without subtracting. Again, simple arithmetic means the sum will only get higher. For me, adding is usually a good thing, but therein lies the problem – we buy cars faster than the country can build roads.
What do we do with all the scrap recovered from Garaheco? It provides the Philippine government with a highly in-demand commodity to continue its Build, Better, More program, which is steel. The auto industry also benefits because scrapping old cars can supply recycled materials for new energy vehicles such as hybrids, battery-electric models, and electric vehicles (EVs). Best of all, if you scrap your old vehicle, you will have fewer emissions if you use the rebates to buy a new electrified vehicle.
The Electric Vehicle (EV) Industry Development Act in 2022 certainly spurred the shift to eco-friendly vehicles for public transportation. As buyers ditch old vehicles for newer models, Garaheco offers a sustainable way of deconstructing old automobiles to reuse parts and recycle scrap without harming the environment. That should translate to fewer (better if totally zero) rusty and broken-down cars on the curb, sidewalk, and vacant lots. Not only will it be aesthetically pleasing, but it should also loosen up traffic flow on plenty of streets around the country.
Right now, Garaheco is handling ELV passenger cars. But soon, it will open up to ELV motorcycles and commercial vehicles such as trucks and semis, corporate clients looking to dispose of fleet cars/trucks, banks with deteriorated repossessed units, and LGUs (local government units). QC’s Mayor Belmonte is in talks with Garaheco about solutions to remove the city’s broken and immobilized ELVs.
Government agencies like the Department of Transportation, the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board, and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources are getting behind Garaheco because it makes their job easier. The DOTr now has a place to send these corroded private vehicles that have turned into road obstacles; the LTFRB has an eco-friendly way of recycling PUVs deemed not roadworthy; and reduced emissions, less environmental damage, makes the DENR happy.
En Tsumugi’s creation of Garaheco is a win-win for you, me, and the country.
Vehicle scrapping is dominated by the Asia Pacific region, led by Japan, China, and India. Yes, our region beat the Americas and even European countries. But the Philippines comes in, albeit (very) late to the party. Nevertheless, as they say, better late than never.