December 6, 2018 — The British Columbia Auto Recyclers Division (B-CAR) has been seeing a declining percentage of recycled parts utilized within the province, and is seeking answers.
Recyclers who are known as allied subscribers that supply parts for the ICBC, have been experiencing a decline in recycled parts utilization over the past seven years despite the rise in demand for recycled parts. They have also been purchasing less salvage units.
“In 2011, 9.6 percent of all parts utilized for repairs were recycled, in other words for every 100 parts 10 of them were recycled. Fast forwarding to 2017 and the percentage of parts utilized declined to 7.2 percent,” said Ken Hendricks, industry relations advisor for BCAR Division.
Hendricks explained that the number of accidents in the province has increased from around 200,000 in 2014 to about 350,000 in 2017. The request for recycled parts has only been increasing as collision repairers are still requesting them but the recyclers are buying fewer parts. Why this is happening? Hendrick said that is the million-dollar question.
The question can point to a few assumptions, which would include OEMs playing a role into this with their aggressive price matching of parts and making it so the repair procedures on vehicles can’t use recycled parts during the repair process.
In British Columbia non-allied recyclers are purchasing new vehicles and shipping the units overseas, which means that parts from these vehicles will not be available for repairs leaving a repair facility to use only OEM or aftermarket parts.
With more new vehicles hitting the market, Henricks says he can see this being an even bigger problem down the road, if nothing is dealt with now.
In efforts to overcome this, the B-CAR has been working alongside the government to figure out how to improve these trends for recyclers in the province.
