Toyota rolls out copper recycling process

According to Toyota spokesman Nik Pearson, the Japanese motor company has already introduced the use of recycled copper into 15 different vehicle lines, including the Prius and in 2013, 200,000 vehicles used recycled copper in production.

The research programme, which began in 2010 with project partners Yazaki and Toyota Tsusho, aimed to define the quality requirements for pre-processing vehicles that have reached the end of their useful life.

According to Toyota, it hadn’t previously been possible to recycle harnesses for their copper content using mechanical methods but in 2011 the company devised a sorting method that safeguards the metal from contamination by minute impurities during the dismantling process.

Trials were launched at its Honsha plant in 2013, and retrieved copper was successfully reintroduced into the vehicle production process.

Pearson told The Engineer via email that with mechanical sorting, the wiring harness coverings are removed by a shredder.