By Martin Banks - 4th September 2007
Rogue car dealers, offering cash for old cars and flouting EU environmental requirements, are having a serious impact on the ability of member states to implement EU laws, claims a senior MEP.
ALDE group deputy Chris Davies says that unscrupulous operators, particularly in the UK, are acting illegally and polluting the environment when they buy old cars from owners for cash-in-hand prices.
He says that, in Britain, the public should only sell their old vehicles to dealers registered by the environment agency as having approved treatment facilities (ATF), or they could find themselves in trouble with the law.
Parliament’s environment committee agreed to a request made by Davies last year and commissioned a €25,000 study into the working of the end of life vehicles directive.
Davies says Sweden and the Netherlands are among those member states doing a “brilliant” job in implementing the legislation but other countries, such as the UK, are “messing it up”.
The end of life vehicles directive, which became law in 2003, requires potential contaminants such as oil, brake fluid, tyres and airbags to be removed from cars before they are scrapped.
In the UK, old cars must be taken to one of 1200 ATFs licensed by the environment agency. Car owners should be issued with a ‘certificate of destruction’ to prove that the vehicle has been de-polluted, scrapped lawfully and road tax is no longer due.
But Davies says many local illegal dismantlers are undercutting the ATFs by collecting cars and disposing of them illegally.
With only around 900,000 certificates of destruction issued in the UK last year, latest figures suggest that as many as 1.1 million old cars are being unlawfully collected each year.
Davies, UK Liberal environment spokesman in parliament, warns that millions of car owners are placing themselves at risk of prosecution for failing to obtain a certificate of destruction from legitimate vehicle dismantlers in accordance with the rules.
He said, "If car owners are not issued with a CoD they cannot be sure the vehicle dismantler has been properly registered, that their car will be dismantled safely, or that the environment will be protected.
"They can be certain that the pollutants in their car will end up polluting the environment.
"If their car is in fact not scrapped but sold and driven on the road they could be liable for a road tax fine after two weeks, with a further penalty if the car is driven untaxed.
"They would also have to pick up the tab for any parking or speeding fines incurred while someone else is driving the vehicle."
“This EU law is good news for the environment but the entire scheme is undermined if these people can simply carry on letting oil and brake fluids wash down the nearest drain."
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