Europe’s end-of-life vehicle recycling industry is entering a more demanding stage.

The European Union’s new End-of-Life Vehicles Regulation entered into force on August 13, 2026, replacing the previous framework with stricter requirements covering vehicle design, collection, dismantling, treatment and material recovery.

The Regulation will begin applying from September 1, 2028, while several treatment and material-quality requirements will be introduced progressively in the following years.

For automotive recyclers, one of the most important changes is clear:

recovering metals from shredded vehicles will no longer be enough. Recovered materials will increasingly need to be separated into cleaner and more precisely defined fractions.

This is particularly important for aluminum.

Europe Generates Millions of End-of-Life Vehicles Every Year

Between 10 and 12 million vehicles reach the end of their useful life in Europe every year.

However, only around 6 to 7 million vehicles are currently reported as being properly treated through recognized end-of-life systems.

This means large quantities of valuable secondary raw materials may still be lost from the formal recycling chain.

Vehicles contain substantial quantities of:

• Steel
• Aluminum
• Copper
• Plastics
• Rubber
• Glass
• Electronics
• Permanent magnets
• Other valuable and critical raw materials

The new EU Regulation is designed to keep more of these materials inside European manufacturing supply chains.

For recycling companies, this creates a major opportunity.

A vehicle is no longer viewed simply as a source of scrap steel.

It is increasingly treated as a secondary raw-material reservoir.

ASR Is Becoming a More Valuable Recycling Stream

After reusable parts and hazardous components are removed, end-of-life vehicles are typically shredded.

Ferrous metals can then be recovered relatively efficiently.

What remains can include complex material streams commonly associated with automotive shredder residue, or ASR.

ASR may contain:

• Aluminum
• Copper
• Brass
• Stainless steel
• Wire
• Plastics
• Rubber
• Foam
• Glass
• Textiles
• Fine mineral material
• Other mixed components

Historically, some of these materials have been difficult to recover economically.

The result is that valuable aluminum, copper and recyclable plastics can remain mixed inside lower-value residue.

The new EU rules place greater pressure on recycling plants to move beyond basic ferrous recovery and extract more value from these downstream fractions.

A Major Change: Aluminum Must Be Sorted More Precisely

One of the most important technical requirements in the new Regulation concerns aluminum.

From September 1, 2029, aluminum recovered from vehicle treatment must be sorted into at least two fractions:

Cast Aluminum

Material with a silicon content above 1.5%.

Wrought Aluminum

Material with a silicon content equal to or below 1.5%.

This represents a significant change in the way automotive aluminum recycling is approached.

Instead of treating recovered aluminum as one mixed product, recyclers will increasingly need to distinguish between different aluminum categories.

That is important because cast and wrought aluminum have different alloy compositions and different downstream applications.

Mixing them together can reduce the value and usability of recycled material.

By 2032, Aluminum Sorting Requirements Become Even Stricter

The Regulation goes further.

From September 1, 2032, aluminum must be separated into at least four fractions with more specific composition requirements.

These include different categories based on silicon content and limits for elements such as:

• Copper
• Iron
• Magnesium
• Zinc

This signals an important change in European automotive recycling.

The future objective will increasingly be:

not only recovering aluminum, but producing aluminum fractions with controlled composition.

This moves automotive recycling closer to the needs of secondary aluminum producers.

It also increases the importance of material preparation, sensor technology and more advanced downstream upgrading.

Why Cast and Wrought Aluminum Separation Matters

Aluminum is not one uniform material.

Different vehicle components use different alloy families.

Examples include:

Cast Aluminum

Commonly found in:

• Engine components
• Transmission housings
• Structural castings
• Certain automotive components

Cast alloys often contain higher levels of silicon.

Wrought Aluminum

Commonly found in:

• Body sheet
• Extrusions
• Structural profiles
• Crash-management components
• Other formed aluminum products

These materials can have significantly different chemical compositions.

When different alloy families are mixed during recycling, the resulting secondary metal may only be suitable for lower-value applications.

Separating aluminum into more controlled fractions creates the possibility of higher-value recycling and more circular use of automotive aluminum.

This Changes the Meaning of “Aluminum Recovery”

Traditional recycling discussions often focus on one metric:

recovery rate.

How much aluminum can be removed from the waste stream?

That remains important.

But the EU requirements introduce another important question:

What quality of aluminum is being recovered?

A recycling plant may achieve a high recovery rate while still producing a mixed aluminum fraction containing:

• Cast aluminum
• Wrought aluminum
• Copper
• Brass
• Zinc
• Stainless steel
• Wire
• Ferrous contamination
• Plastic
• Rubber

For future European automotive recycling, that may not be sufficient.

The industry is moving toward two simultaneous objectives:

Higher Recovery

and

Higher Material Definition

This is a major opportunity for more advanced sorting systems.

The Regulation Also Tightens Steel-Fraction Quality

The new rules do not focus only on aluminum.

The main recovered steel fraction will also face tighter copper contamination limits.

The total copper content of the main steel fraction must not exceed 0.25% by weight.

From September 1, 2031, that limit becomes stricter:

0.15% maximum copper content.

This requirement matters because copper contamination can reduce the quality of recycled steel.

For shredder operators, it reinforces the need for effective separation between:

• Ferrous material
• Copper-bearing material
• Wire
• Other non-ferrous metals

A cleaner steel fraction can provide greater value to downstream steel producers.

Shredder Heavy Fraction Requires Further Treatment

Another important requirement directly affects downstream shredder processing.

After air separation and ferrous metal removal, the shredder heavy fraction must undergo additional treatment aimed at separating:

• Ferrous metals
• Non-ferrous metals
• Plastics
• Other organic materials

This is particularly relevant to ASR processing.

It confirms that simple shredding followed by basic steel recovery will not represent the future standard for high-quality European vehicle recycling.

More value must be recovered from the material that remains.

Material Size Classification Becomes More Important

ASR contains highly variable material sizes and shapes.

A recycling stream may contain:

small wire pieces, aluminum fragments, plastic components, stainless steel pieces, larger metal particles and fine mineral material.

Processing all of these materials together can reduce separation stability.

Material size classification can help divide the stream into more controlled fractions before further sorting.

A more controlled feed can improve:

• Material distribution
• Separation consistency
• Aluminum recovery
• Fine-metal recovery
• Sensor performance
• Final product quality

Different material-size ranges may require different recovery configurations.

For this reason, size classification is often an important upstream stage before more precise ASR sorting.

Ferrous Metal Removal Remains the Foundation

Iron and steel remain the easiest major metal fraction to recover from shredded vehicles.

Magnetic separation should therefore normally occur before downstream non-ferrous recovery.

A practical process may begin with:

Shredded Vehicle Material

↓

Material Size Classification

↓

Ferrous Metal Removal

↓

Non-Ferrous Metal Recovery

↓

Additional Material Upgrading

Removing ferrous contamination creates a cleaner feed for later stages.

It also reduces interference with equipment designed to recover aluminum and other valuable non-ferrous metals.

Eddy Current Separation Supports Bulk Aluminum Recovery

After ferrous metal has been removed, conductive non-ferrous metals can be recovered from non-metallic material.

This is an important role for eddy current separation.

An eddy current separator can recover aluminum-rich and other conductive non-ferrous fractions from material containing:

• Plastic
• Rubber
• Glass
• Foam
• Mineral material
• Other non-conductive waste

For ASR recycling, this provides an important bulk recovery stage.

However, the new EU requirements show why the process may increasingly need to continue beyond this point.

An aluminum-rich product is not necessarily the final product.

Additional upgrading may be required to create more precisely defined aluminum fractions.

Copper and Wire Recovery Will Also Matter More

Modern vehicles contain increasing quantities of electrical systems.

These include:

• Wiring harnesses
• Motors
• Sensors
• Electronic modules
• Charging components
• High-voltage systems

After shredding, copper-bearing wire can become mixed with aluminum, stainless steel, plastics and other materials.

If copper remains in the wrong output fraction, it can reduce downstream product quality.

This makes wire and copper recovery increasingly important.

For suitable material streams, intelligent recognition can provide an additional upgrading stage after conventional bulk metal separation.

Visible wire and cable pieces can be identified as target materials and removed from the mixed stream.

Stainless Steel Creates a Different Challenge

Stainless steel does not behave exactly like conventional ferrous steel.

Some stainless grades have a strong magnetic response.

Others are weakly magnetic or effectively non-magnetic under conventional operating conditions.

This means stainless steel can remain in downstream mixed-metal fractions after conventional magnetic separation.

Depending on the material, additional intelligent or sensor-based sorting may be required.

This reinforces an important principle:

no single machine can completely sort complex automotive shredder residue.

Effective ASR recovery normally requires several complementary technologies.

Intelligent Sorting Can Provide the Final Upgrading Stage

After conventional technologies perform bulk separation, intelligent sorting can be used to target more difficult materials.

Image-recognition systems can analyze visible characteristics such as:

• Color
• Shape
• Surface appearance
• Texture
• Object profile
• Structural characteristics

Depending on the target material, intelligent sorting can potentially help identify:

• Stainless steel
• Wire and cable
• Selected metal fractions
• Other recognizable recyclable materials

This type of system is generally most useful after easier separation tasks have already been completed.

In practical terms:

traditional separation performs the bulk recovery; intelligent recognition performs additional upgrading.

Plastics Are Also Becoming a More Important ELV Resource

The EU Regulation does not only strengthen metal recovery.

It also introduces recycled-content requirements for plastics in new vehicles.

From 2032, new vehicles will need to contain at least 15% recycled plastic.

From 2036, that requirement will increase to 25%.

This creates stronger demand for automotive plastic recycling.

But plastic cannot be efficiently recycled if the plastic-rich fraction still contains excessive amounts of:

• Aluminum
• Copper
• Stainless steel
• Wire
• Glass
• Rubber
• Other contamination

Therefore, better metal sorting directly supports better downstream plastic recycling.

Cleaner upstream separation creates cleaner plastic feedstock.

Europe Is Moving Toward High-Quality Secondary Raw Materials

The broader objective of the ELV Regulation is not simply to increase recycling percentages.

The EU wants recovered materials to return to European manufacturing.

That requires better-quality secondary raw materials.

The Regulation specifically emphasizes recovery of:

• Steel
• Aluminum
• Copper
• Plastics
• Rare earth materials

This means recycling companies will increasingly be evaluated by what they produce, not only by how much waste they process.

A high-quality recycling line should create clearly defined output fractions with commercial value.

A Future ASR Line May Produce Multiple Valuable Products

Older automotive recycling systems often focused on:

Ferrous Metal + Mixed Residue

A modern ASR recycling line may increasingly target:

Clean Ferrous Fraction

Aluminum-Rich Fraction

Cast Aluminum Fraction

Wrought Aluminum Fraction

Copper-Bearing Fraction

Wire Fraction

Stainless Steel Fraction

Plastic-Rich Fraction

Other Recoverable Materials

This represents a major shift.

The recycling plant becomes less like a waste-treatment facility and more like a secondary raw-material production facility.

Process Design Should Start with the Desired Product

One of the most important decisions in an ASR project should be made before equipment is selected.

The recycler should first define:

What products do we want to recover?

Important questions include:

• What is the incoming material?
• What is the material size range?
• How much ferrous metal remains?
• How much aluminum is present?
• What percentage is cast or wrought aluminum?
• How much copper and wire is present?
• How much stainless steel remains?
• How much plastic is present?
• What capacity is required?
• What final purity does the buyer require?

The answers determine which separation stages are actually necessary.

Not every plant requires the same process.

CurrenTek ASR Sorting Solutions

CurrenTek provides recycling sorting equipment and process configurations for automotive shredder residue and other complex recycling streams.

Depending on the customer’s actual material, a process can include:

Material Size Classification

Mixed material is divided into controlled size ranges to create more stable feed conditions.

Ferrous Metal Removal

Iron and steel are removed before downstream non-ferrous recovery.

Non-Ferrous Metal Recovery

Conductive non-ferrous metals such as aluminum can be recovered from non-metallic material.

Intelligent Material Upgrading

Selected stainless steel, wire and other recognizable recyclable fractions can be further separated where required.

The final system should be configured according to the customer’s material and required output products.

CurrenTek does not recommend adding unnecessary equipment simply to make a recycling line more complex.

The objective is to design the:

shortest practical process capable of producing the required material quality.

What Information Should Customers Provide?

For an initial ASR recycling project evaluation, customers can provide:

• Material photos
• Material videos
• Material samples
• Material size range
• Required processing capacity
• Existing process flow
• Metals already removed
• Target recovered materials
• Required product purity
• Available installation space

For complex material streams, testing can help determine whether additional separation stages are technically and economically justified.

The EU ELV Regulation Changes the Value of Sorting

The new European rules send a clear message to the recycling industry.

Future end-of-life vehicle recycling will not be defined only by how much material is recovered.

It will increasingly be defined by:

how precisely the material is separated,

how clean the recovered fractions are,

and

whether those fractions can return to industrial manufacturing.

The requirement to separate automotive aluminum first into cast and wrought fractions — and later into even more tightly defined composition groups — is particularly significant.

It shows that aluminum recovery is moving beyond basic non-ferrous separation.

The next stage is material upgrading and alloy control.

For recycling companies, this creates both a technical challenge and a commercial opportunity.

Plants capable of producing cleaner steel, aluminum, copper, wire and plastic fractions will be better positioned as Europe builds a more circular automotive-material supply chain.