Effectively tackling the issue of millions of vehicles with unknown whereabouts : European priority measure: establishing leakage-proof vehicle registration systems / by Christian Kitazume, Regina Kohlmeyer and Dr. Ines Oehme (German Environment Agency, Dessau-Roßlau) ; publisher: Umweltbundesamt ; responsible unit: Section III 1.6 Extended Producer Responsibility

Abstract

6 million end-of-life vehicles (ELVs) are disposed of in the EU each year according to Eurostat statistics. However, annually, the fate of an additional 3.4 to 4.7 million deregistered vehicles is unaccounted for. A substantial share of this efflux is likely to be illegally treated or exported, thereby potentially causing environmental damage and harming European economies. To halt unauthorised treatment and illegal export of these vehicles with unknown whereabouts, an appropriate European framework for national vehicle registration systems is needed to effectively prevent leakage and intrinsically direct all ELVs into the more than 13,000 authorised treatment facilities. The certificate of destruction (CoD) as the current steering instrument under the ELV Directive 2000/53/EC can only be effective if embedded into appropriate vehicle registration/ deregistration systems