VDA Technical Congress 2022: With Digital Solutions towards a Circular Economy

The opening of the panel was conducted by Dr. Bettina Rechenberg, Head of the Environmental Protection Agency, who provided a general overview of the existing plans and regulations to advance the Circular Economy. She emphasized that under current circumstances, these are no longer sufficient and need to be adjusted.

She was followed by Philipp Leschinski, Project Manager Circular Economy, Data Driven Value Chain at BMW, and Product Manager at Catena-X. At Catena-X, 28 companies have joined forces to form a digital platform aimed at further developing topics like the circular economy. From sourcing to recycling, Leschinski set the stage for Marius Pohl, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the LRP Group. He is also the Chairman of the BDSV’s Working Group on Vehicle Dismantling and stood out with his bright, elegant suit, speaking for all car recyclers as CEO of the largest company in the industry.

There is still enormous potential in car recycling

LRP recycles 14,000 used cars annually. There are around 1,000 such companies in Germany, but: they are small-scale and: Only 20 percent of all cars end up with the recyclers, and of those, only 12 percent are fully recycled. According to him, this is due to the End-of-Life Vehicle Directive, which per se is extremely good but is often circumvented. It’s different in Scandinavia or the Netherlands, where cars can only be decommissioned with a recycling certificate.

Top priority: Reuse instead of scrapping

The first step is always the reuse of components, which we would like to reintroduce into the market. However, the industry consists mainly of small and medium-sized enterprises – if we had access to spare parts platforms or could see requests from OEMs, it would help us greatly. That’s why systems like Catia X would be a good approach. Essentially, nothing from a car should be 'thrown away,' but according to Pohl, too many vehicles still end up in the press, at best partially disassembled. This is a huge waste of raw materials.

Plastics can also be recycled and shredded, but: nobody will take 500 tons of plastic to a shredding operation. However, if all one thousand recycling companies in Germany came together, you would have a completely different volume – then shredding plastic would be worthwhile.

He was followed by Dr. Andreas Levermann, Technical Managing Director of Schwering & Hasse Elektrodraht GmbH and Synflex Elektro GmbH. He explained:

“I am pleased that the copper wire has arrived at the Technical Congress.”

A complex topic that is particularly pressing and intricate in times of scarce raw materials, especially since the company produces several tens of thousands of kilometers of wire annually. The critical nature of the issue was further elaborated by Michael Wieland, Managing Director of SynFlex Service Company LLC, who opened with the question:

“Customers always ask, is there still copper? Yes, even enough that we can sell it.”

The problem with raw materials, according to Wieland, is not their availability, but often a matter of location and timing: they are usually not where they are needed, and when they are needed, they are too expensive. Furthermore, one is operating in an extremely volatile market: from the extraction of copper to the processed end product, five to six weeks can pass, during which prices can change significantly. You can hedge against this, but as Wieland put it, you can 'either protect yourself or knowingly dive fully into the risk.'

Standardization is necessary – otherwise others will standardize

The freshness of his predecessor was taken up by Christoph Winterhalter, Chairman of the Board of DIN Deutsches Institut für Normung e.V. He urged not to leave the topic of standardizations, in which Germany is expectedly strong, to others, because: By standardizing, you set standards that everyone has to follow. And according to Winterhalter, it is better to shape these yourself. Asian nations have also discovered this, and in his experience, they have increasingly initiated and advanced standardization processes recently. In practice, the discussion with technicians and engineers makes standardization so exciting. Winterhalter concluded with the words: "I am an engineer and thought standardization – that is terribly boring! Believe me, the opposite is true!”

What does this mean?

Circular economy can be extremely exciting. If approached as colorful as the VDA panel did, which in this case ranged from copper cables over vehicle recycling to Catena-X.