Final Thoughts
By Michael E. Wilson, ARA Chief Executive Officer
michael@a-r-a.org
International Representation Counts
n March, ARA was on hand at the 15th International Automobile Recycling Congress (IARC) in Berlin, Germany to represent the industry and interests of ARA member businesses. ARA Past President Ed MacDonald and myself par- ticipated in the three-day meeting. ARA represents over 4,500 professional automotive recyclers through direct and affiliated chapter members in the United States and in 15 countries internationally. The latest international member to join is from Israel.
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Our presence at international automo- tive recycling events is important as ARA represents professional automotive recy- cling businesses from all over the world. The IARC is an opportunity to hear directly from our international members and grow ARA’s voice internationally. While ARA members’ business facilities differ from facility to facility, there is sig- nificant commonality in the global issues facing the professional automotive recy- cling industry.
The IARC brings together stakeholders from throughout the end-of-life vehicle recycling chain, including auto manufac- turers, metals and plastic scrap recyclers, auto recyclers, shredder operators, and policymakers. Over 250 attendees partic- ipated in this year’s event. This year’s conference sessions had a keen focus on the 95 percent recycling rate target set for 2015 under the European Union End-of-Life Directive, which was the subject of much discussion in and out of the educational sessions. We enjoyed a variety of educational ses- sions on topics such as how manufactur- ers and the recycling industry close the recycling loop; best available recycling technologies; auto manufacturer feed- back from Asia, the USA and Europe; next-generation recycling pro- cesses and equipment; and recycling challenges presented by new automotive materials, such as nickel metal hydride,
74 Automotive Recycling | March-April 2015
The IARC is an opportunity to hear directly from our international members and grow ARA’s voice internationally.
lithium-ion batteries, carbon fiber, glass, lamps and catalysts.
At the event, Ed participated in a panel discussion with speakers from Mexico and India, and shared an overview of the North American automotive recycling model that detailed activities of the Automotive Recyclers of Canada (ARC) and particularly the Association’s recent, “Take Back the Tundra” pilot end-of-life vehicle processing program in the Canada arctic. The presentation was well received and many follow-up questions were asked of him during the remainder of the con- ference.
During the Congress, I took the oppor- tunity to reiterate our call for vital OEM part number data for professional auto- motive recyclers in a question to keynote speaker Erik Jonnaert, the Secretary General of the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association.
ARA is calling on the automakers to adhere to European Commission (EC) regulations that require manufacturers to provide independent operators “infor- mation on all parts of the vehicle, with which the vehicle, as identified by the vehicle identification number (VIN) and any additional criteria such as wheelbase, engine output, trim level or options, is
equipped by the vehicle manufacturer.” Under European regulations, this data must be made available in a database eas- ily accessible to independent operators and should include the VIN, Original Equipment (OE) parts numbers, OE naming of the parts, validity attributes (valid-from and valid-to dates), fitting and where applicable structuring charac- teristics.
Without access to OE parts informa- tion, the identification of economic and safe alternatives to new OE parts will become increasingly challenging. Auto- makers in the United States must embrace European requirements regard- ing access to automotive parts informa- tion that is critical to enhance the safety of the global vehicle owner, the sustain- ability of the worldwide environment and ensuring fair and efficient competi- tion in the automotive parts replacement marketplace.
In the coming months, ARA will con- tinue our efforts to push automakers to be more proactive in working with other sectors within the automotive parts supply chain to build a more efficient system of identifying automotive parts so they can be located at all points throughout their life cycle.
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