DESIGN FOR RECYCLING – THINKING OF THE END AT THE BEGINNING

Regulations of the European Union are demanding that re-use of materials should be taken into account already in the design phase of new vehicles and to provide instructions about exploitation of the old cars. When engineering a car, every part of the vehicle is analysed in terms of ecological criteria: "the possibility of re-use of materials", "convenience for recycling" and "critical materials". The primary principle of "Design for recycling" is using a closed circuit of materials. Recycled material must fully correspond to the new material in all its properties. Analysis of different materials shows that with the increasing application of recycled materials substantial savings in energy consumption and raw materials can be achieved. Selection of plastic materials plays a very important role in the engineering of the car taking into account the recycling. Labelling the plastic allows its clean sorting and re-use. In addition, an important criterion is easy disassembly of the parts to be used again. Car producers are obliged to prepare manuals for disassembling for each vehicle.