Recycling

  • EcoLon Engine Covers.  Image Courtest of Ford Motor Company

    While you're ripping up old celery shag to lay down fresh berber, you may wonder where the carpet ends up. Probably, regrettably, a landfill somewhere--which is not the case with some automotive carpeting that a Ford supplier is turning into new parts. For years, automakers have used plastics to replace metal in some engine components such as engine covers, valve covers and even intake manifolds. It takes a lot of petroleum to make those plastics, though, so anything that can be done to reduce the amount of virgin plastic used in cars would ultimately benefit both the environment and the...

  • car batteries are highly recyclable - AAA
    Who Knew? A Car Battery Is the World's Most Recycled Product

    A concern raised over upcoming electric-drive cars--the all-electric 2011 Nissan Leaf, the 2011 Chevrolet Volt, and the 2012 Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid--is what happens to their lithium-ion battery packs once the car's life ends. Images of those battery packs tossed over cliffs or littering...

  • Tesla Motors - Model S lithium-ion battery pack
    Life After The Road: Tesla’s European Electric Car Battery Recycling

    It may be the largest battery pack available in any electric car on the road today, but what happens when it is no-longer able to provide enough kick to push the 2011 Tesla Roadster Sport 2.5 from 0-60 in under 4 seconds? That’s the question answered by Tesla Motors this week as it announced...

  • 2011 Mazda2 exterior and detail
    Most Popular Posts of 2010: Mazda2, Prius Crashes, Leaf, Volt, and Other EVs

    We love looking back to see what's been popular over the course of a full year. And 2010 was definitely chock-full of green car news. Our 10 most popular posts this year are a little less random than last year's most popular, which featured Muslims and ethanol, urine, hybrid Ferraris, and our...

  • 2011 Chevrolet Volt
    GM, Nissan, Tesla Focus On How To Recycle Used Electric-Car Batteries

    Electric cars may be coming out in force come December, but the spotlight is now on how their batteries will be resold and recycled several years down the road. There’s been a recent spate of announcements from Nissan, General Motors and Tesla on this topic. All three companies are looking...

  • Power lines by Flickr user achouro
    Will Old Chevy Volt Batteries (Eventually) Store Solar Energy From Your Roof?

    Pretty much everyone loves renewable energy. The problem is that wind usually blows at night--often sporadically, at that--and solar power is unpredictable. Suppose the secret to harnessing their potential was ... used electric-car batteries? GM said today that it would work with ABB Group to...

  • Panasonic Li-Ion EV battery

    Getting reborn is at the center of many world religions. And it turns out that it’s also at the center of Nissan’s philosophy for it’s EV batteries after they’ve reached the end of a useful life. Instead of being destined for landfill, Nissan aims to send batteries from its 2011 Nissan Leaf to 4R Energy Corp, a newly formed company aimed at commercialising used lithium-ion batteries for electric cars. Founded by Nissan Japan and trading house Sumitomo Corporation, the company will act as a reprocessing agent for used Lithium Ion batteries otherwise destined for an...

  • 2011 Ford Explorer
    Ford Saves Scrap Steel, Stamps Explorer Parts From Pickup Leftovers

    A century ago, Henry Ford was known for insisting that parts be shipped to his factories in wooden crates whose slats were sized so they could be reused to build parts of the Model T body. Now a similar spirit of saving scrap is being used to stamp fender baffles for the new 2011 Ford Explorer out...

  • VW GOLF TDI_7
    Car Batteries, Diesel Golfs, Prius Crashes: What's the Link?

    Like many site editors, we read our traffic stats religiously. Perhaps unlike other site editors, ours frequently make us laugh. We try to provide practical information on navigating your way through the confusing claims made about 'green' cars, whether they're hybrids, clean diesels, or just very...

  • President Bill Clinton
    Bill Clinton: Feds Should Subsidize Buyers' Switch to Electric Cars

    Former President Bill Clinton recently visited social network digg.com  for a special Earth Day interview that touched on electric-vehicle policy and legislation. He answered user questions about many ecological and environmental topics--including third-world development and global warming--as...

  • Littlearth Classic Fender Handbag, using recycled Florida license plates, $140
    Recycling Your Entire Car: From Hooptie To Handbag

    And now for something completely different. But first, a definition from Wikipedia, in case "hooptie" wasn't in your vocabulary as yet: Hooptie ... an old, decrepit, unreliable and often nonfunctional car which has limited mechanical abilities and is often in an unmaintained and usually in a rusty...

  • GM Recycling
    Your New Car Is Made Of Old Carpet, Milk Jugs, and Ripped Jeans

    When you think of a brand-new, gleaming, 2010 model car rolling out of your driveway, what materials come to mind? Steel, chrome, soft-touch interior plastics, maybe even supple leather upholstery? Well, how about some old carpets, ground-up milk cartons, and shredded, faded, raggedy blue jeans?...

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