An Automotive Bulk Recycling Planning Model

The automotive recycling infrastructure successfully recovers 75% of the material weight in end-of-life vehicles primarily through ferrous metal separation. However, this industry faces significant challenges as automotive manufacturers increase the use of nonferrous and nonmetallic materials. As the nonferrous content in end-of-life vehicles rises, automotive shredders need to evaluate to what extent to separate nonferrous metals. We propose a recycling planning model for automotive shredders to make short-term tactical decisions regarding to what extent to process and to reprocess materials through multiple passes. In addition, the mixed integer programming model determines whether to combine materials for shipment. In a case study for automotive shredding decisions for the current composition and more polymer-intensive end-of-life vehicles, we use our model to show the sensitivity of the decision to reprocess light nonferrous metal to low and high metal prices. Contrary to observations in practice to mix light and heavy nonferrous metals for shipment, we show multiple scenarios where the model chooses to reprocess and ship separated light and heavy nonferrous metals