Toyota’s Idea To Improve Vehicle Recycling

There’s a lot of news and discourse about the number of vehicles rolling out of factory floors and sold to customers yearly. However, Toyota is putting the spotlight on vehicle recycling other than just vehicle mass production numbers and sales.

There are around 10 million end-of-life vehicles (ELVs) in the US each year. Disposing of Toyota vehicles in the US typically involves sending them to Toyota junk yards or reputable places where you can have your Toyota vehicle recycled.

Around 75% of all vehicle materials are recycled in scrap yards. Meanwhile, the rest of the 25%, which is composed of plastics, textiles, glass, and other nonmetallic materials, are thrown in landfills.

What Is Toyota’s TCF Program?

Toyota’s circular factory (TCF) initiative aims to improve the recycling processes by completely revamping how vehicles are disposed of. This means Toyota can extract more reusable parts from ELVs, use them as replacement parts, and forgo the need to manufacture new components.

Toyota Manufacturing UK’s Burnaston plant in Derbyshire is the first plant to implement this initiative, and it’s set to start in the third quarter of 2025. This first factory can hopefully serve as a center of excellence for future recycling processes across Europe and other global markets.

Toyota Motor Europe’s vice president said they’re planning on rolling out similar operations across Europe as Toyota’s next step. Toyota is also eager to collaborate with other organizations that have similar passions when it comes to achieving carbon neutrality and circularity.

How Does Toyota’s TCF Program Work?

Instead of scrapping the whole vehicle for its raw materials, each ELV will go through a rigorous validation process before being sorted. The vehicle’s materials and parts can either be reused for resale, refurbished, or recycled. Toyota stores and distributors will sell reusable parts.

Materials such as copper, aluminum, steel, and plastic would be recycled and used to make new parts. Everything, including parts like batteries and wheels, will be examined to figure out whether they can have a second life.

How Is Toyota’s TCF Program Different From Scrapyards?

Toyota’s TCF recycling approach is very similar to a scrapyard’s approach to recycling a vehicle’s parts and raw materials.

In a scrapyard, fluids are removed, and usable parts like the wheels are removed. Then, the vehicle’s chassis is usually crushed, compacted, and shipped to a recycling center. There, the vehicle will be shredded into smaller pieces that can be sorted into various metals to be melted and recycled.

The TCF program is unique because the manufacturer will also be directly responsible for recycling the vehicles that they’ve made in the past. The TCF process might be able to recycle more parts from scrap cars, given that Toyota can be able to remanufacture and refurbish used parts in a way that scrapyards can’t do.

This recycling process is meant to significantly reduce future emissions from vehicle and subcomponent manufacturing. Unfortunately, the Toyota TCF program is only being implemented in the Toyota Motor Manufacturing UK’s Burnaston plant. It’s unclear whether this program will also be launched in the US.