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California toxic waste regulators target automobile recycling ‘fluff’

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on May 27, 2009 at 6:42 am

From the Los Angeles Times:

At a recycling plant in San Pedro and five other similar operations around California, giant shredding machines annually reduce 1.3 million junk cars, refrigerators and other appliances into fist-sized chunks of metal.

Valuable scrap that contains iron is separated so it can be turned back into steel. Hunks of aluminum, copper and other alloys are pulled out for reprocessing.

But the leftovers — bits of glass, fiber, rubber, engine fluids, dirt and plastics — are getting new attention from state toxic substance regulators, and the $500-million-a-year shredding industry is fighting back.

For years, auto-shredding companies have been hauling tons of these treated leftovers, known in the industry as fluff, to municipal landfills under a state variance granted more than 20 years ago. State officials now say they are concerned that residue from heavy metals in the fluff could seep from landfills into groundwater, while airborne metal-laden particles could endanger workers at recycling plants and dumps and people living in neighborhoods near such facilities.

Read more from the Los Angeles Times by clicking here.

May 27, 2009 · Filed Under Groundwater

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