Last month in our bi-weekly Ask the Industry column we looked at the various ways automotive companies work to reduce their overall impact on the environment. With Earth Day just around the corner, we focus on one segment of the industry that has become known as the ‘ultimate form of recycling’ – remanufacturing.

Today, the reman industry is just scratching the surface when it comes to communicating the benefits (environmental and otherwise) of the remanufacturing process to consumers and legislators, however a strong body of research lays the groundwork for their cause. In the process of interviewing industry experts on the subject, aftermarketNews editors were directed to a study written in 1996 by Boston University professors William Hauser and Robert Lund, which compiles 25 years of research on the remanufacturing industry.

While years of research on the reman industry has been compiled, when it comes to data it’s very difficult to quanitify the environmental impact of remanufacturing, simply due to the complex nature of the process.

“The huge problem we have with global warming is trying to compute what these savings are,” said Bill Gager , president of the Automotive Parts Remanufacturers Association (APRA). “It’s not an easy task. You have to figure out, say, if you remanufacture an engine, what the impact is, in terms of the contribution of reducing emissions. There are so many complicated formulas. But we’re in the process of trying to figure that out because we think that that will focus a lot of attention on Congress and state agencies to promote remanufacturing more than we’re doing now.”

Lund and Hauser’s study shows that the remanufacturing process conserves 85 percent of the material and energy used to create new products. There are cost-savings for consumers as well, the study shows. By providing like-new products at prices that typically range from 45 percent to 65 percent of comparable new products, remanufacturers can attract new buyers into a market where new product prices have been prohibitively high for them, and thus, the overall size of the market is increased.

As a privately-held remanufacturing company, CARDONE Industries typically refrains from promoting itself in the public eye, however, the company did share with us some of the materials it uses to promote the benefits of the reman process. The first, a simple flyer using data from Lund and Hauser’s study, highlights the significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions that result from the remanufacturing process.

On an annual basis, remanufacturing saves 400 trillion BTUs of energy, equivalent to 10, 500-megawatt coal fired electricity plants. It also saves 14 million tons of raw material, which is roughly enough material to fill a train 1,650 miles long. The reman process also keeps 28 million tons of carbon dioxide from being released into the environment every year.

If that’s not enough, research shows that reman products cost 30 to 50 percent less than new products. The reman industry also has a higher level of job creation than new manufacturing; for every one manufacturing job, three to five reman jobs are created.

Promoting the Industry

But what good is all this information if the industry is just talking to itself? In a political climate when global warming, raw materials and the shrinking manufacturing base are among the most critical issues, now is the time to educate legistlators and consumers about the benefits of the remanufacturing industry, not only in terms of environmental benefits but in terms of the overall positive impact it can have on the American economy.

APRA and its member have been working for years to get the word out. And this time of year, with Earth Day taking place on April 22, is the perfect time to spread the message, said Gager. Every year for Earth Day, the association issues a press release highlighting the environmental benefits of remanufacturing. The focus of this year’s message is global warming.

In the release, APRA shares that automotive and truck parts remanufacturers make their contributions toward a “green” earth every day by using the most efficient and effective means available to save both energy and material resources to restore old automotive parts to like-new performance.

“Unfortunately, everybody is concerned about the price,” said Gager. “But, we’re such a ‘green’ industry. There is a tremendous amount of energy saved through remanufacturing. Reman product keeps waste out of landfills, natural resources are conserved and air pollution is reduced, so remanufacturing something such as an alternator, an engine or a transmission has the effect of saving 85 percent of the energy that went into making the product the first go round. What happens with remanufacturing is that it’s not just taking an old core and making something out of it. What you are also doing is saving all the labor and energy and capital that went into that product in the first place. Most people don’t think of that. By adding additional life to a product, the savings are huge.” 

To learn more about remanufacturing, and to download a PDF of the book “Remanufacturing: The Ultimate Form of Recycling,” click here.