Recycling Your Car Through Donation
Why is recycling a car so important?
Most vehicles have a catalytic converter, which is composed of some of the most precious metals on earth. By recycling your vehicle, the need to mine for these materials is reduced, and this prevents excessive contributions to greenhouse gas emissions.
Lead acid car batteries can leak sulphuric acid, lead, and mercury into the environment. On average, 1.8 million batteries are improperly disposed of each year, causing extensive air and water pollution. Donating your vehicle to a responsible charity prevents this environmental contamination.
Recycling these batteries ensures the production of new batteries is more efficient, cost-effective, and prevents further use of natural resources.
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Approximately 1.5 billion car tires are driven to the end of their useful life each year. Of these 1.5 billion, 1 billion end up in landfills or burned. The proper recycling of tires can reduce air pollution. The recycled rubber can then be used to create new products, including insulation blocks.
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Recycling automobiles promotes sustainability by saving energy that would be used to generate new materials. For example, the steel industry saves enough power through vehicle recycling to power more than 18 million households for a year. Recycling steel uses 74% less energy than making new steel.
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Recycling your vehicle provides opportunities to upcycle parts. For example, people can use old tires as planters, tables, playground equipment or shoe material.
Why Donate to Homeless Cars?
When you donate a vehicle to Homeless Cars, you are ensuring that the sum of its parts doesn’t end up in a landfill.
On average, a vehicle weighs 4094 pounds. That’s 4094 pounds of material that when given to an auto wrecker who does not recycle, ends up contaminating the environment.
Homeless Cars only works with reputable auto recyclers, many of which have decades of experience in the industry. Homeless Cars ensures that the liquids from your scrap vehicle are properly disposed of, the metal is recycled and the tires from your vehicle avoid the landfill.
Homeless Cars also provides the opportunity for vehicles in better condition to be upcycled. If the vehicle is still operational, it may be resold as road-worthy, extending the life of the vehicle and reducing the need for new car production.
Alternatively, the vehicle may be sold as a parts vehicle, ensuring components of the vehicle can be reused or repurposed for another vehicle in need.
Homeless Cars aims to not only fund charities that support homeless and food insecurity relief but to do so sustainably and ethically.