Brussels: Build Recyclable Cars
By in
The Commission asks that every new passenger-car or van model must be at least 85 % reusable/recyclable and 95 % reusable/recoverable by mass, a threshold that already exists but is now implemented only via a directive; the regulation would make it directly binding EU-wide. From 2030, 25 % of a vehicle’s plastics must come from recycled sources (one quarter of that 25 % from end-of-life vehicles). Parliament already voted a cut to 20 %, but the figure is still up for grabs.
By eEuropa
6 MINUTES READ
Brussels, 11 June 2025 – When in July 2023 the European Commission unveiled the Proposal for a Regulation COM(2023) 451 final repealing Directives 2000/53/EC and 2005/64/EC, it pitched the proposal as nothing less than “the most radical overhaul of car-waste rules in two decades.”
The draft Regulation would scrap the 2000 End-of-Life Vehicles (ELV) Directive and its 2005 “3R” type-approval sister law, replacing both with a single, directly applicable EU regulation designed for the Green Deal era.
At the heart of the text is a simple calculation: Europe’s 12 million cars and vans that reach the scrapyard each year contain more metal, plastics and rare earths than many operating mines. According to the Commission’s own modelling, tighter design rules and better collection could slash climate emissions by 12.8 million tonnes of CO₂ by 2035, bring 3.8 million extra vehicles into licensed treatment centres and recover 350 tonnes of critical raw materials—enough neodymium for roughly 4 million new electric-motor magnets.
The proposal pulls three big policy levers. First, it extends long-standing rules on recyclability, requiring every new passenger car and van type-approved in the EU to be at least 85 % reusable/recyclable and 95 % reusable/recoverable by mass—thresholds previously applied only at Member-State level.
How the EU legislator is modifying the Regulation?