Guide · updated 2026
What actually happens to a car after you scrap it
A car does not go straight into a crusher. Before anything is compressed, everything hazardous has to come out, and that process is tightly regulated.
Depollution comes first
Fuel, engine oil, gearbox oil, coolant, brake fluid, screenwash and air-conditioning gas are all drained and stored separately. The battery is removed. Airbags and seatbelt pretensioners are deployed or taken out, because they are pyrotechnic devices. Tyres come off.
Only once a vehicle is depolluted can it legally be dismantled or crushed.
Then the parts that still have life in them
Catalytic converters are recovered for the precious metals inside. Engines, gearboxes, alternators, lights and body panels that are still serviceable are taken off and go back into circulation rather than being melted down.
What is left
The shell is clean steel by this point. It is baled and sent to a mill, where it goes back into new steel.
The End-of-Life Vehicles Regulations set the targets: 95% of a vehicle's average weight must be recovered, and 85% must be genuine material recycling rather than energy recovered from burning.
This page is general information, not legal advice. For the official position, check GOV.UK — and if something about your car does not fit what is written here, ring the yard and ask.