Junkyards

Known as junkyards to some people, salvage yards to others, and recycling centers to others, the environmental risks are the same no matter what it’s called. Depending on your age, you may remember a television show called Sanford and Son. It featured a father and son team who ran a junkyard together. In that junkyard, they had piles of every conceivable item that modern society has used and thrown away over the past 80 years. 

 

While Sanford and Son was a television show, the depiction of a junkyard was fairly close to reality. There are tens of thousands of junkyards scattered across the United States. Many are literally just a pile of junk dumped someplace out of the back of a truck as a cheap place to dispose of unwanted stuff. One large example is along a creek in Trenton, New Jersey. The pile started small with somebody dumping a mattress and a few pieces of old furniture. Over time, tires, appliances, more mattresses, and demolition debris followed, making the pile into a large illegal junkyard filled with throwaways. 

 

Some junkyards, though, are real businesses that serve a purpose as intermediaries between people getting rid of something and people repurposing it on the other end. 

 

For an easier discussion here, we will talk about three different kinds of junkyards, which all together make up almost all of the ones operating across the country today. There are junkyards that specialize in selling automobile parts from cars and trucks no longer running. Another common category is junkyards that tear apart old automobiles and trucks into pieces and separate them into metal for recycling to the metal industry. Lastly,  there are junkyards like Sanford and Son that have piles of almost anything that may have any value at all but found a place among old piles of washers, refrigerators, toilets, baby carriages, etc.

 

1. Automobile Parts Specialist

 

The first group of junkyards are automotive parts specialists. The history of automobile junkyards goes back almost 100 years. Over the past century, cars and trucks have been manufactured by the millions in factories all over the world. When their useful life is over, many of these have simply been dumped or left in a field, backyard, or building to rust away. The idea of operating a business by accumulating these old vehicles for other uses can be traced back to at least the 1930s and ‘40s. Some historians say it was the Shipman family in Minnesota; others say it was the Lewis family in Georgia who had the first auto junkyard business. Many more got into the business during World War II for the value of the scrap metal and rubber these old vehicles had. Others realized there was more money to be made in selling the old individual parts that were still useful even though the car no longer ran. Whether it was the Shipmans or the Lewis family, a whole new industry was born around the disposal of these millions of no-longer-running vehicles.

 

These junkyards are a great place to replace a car part at a cost much lower than a dealer. Many body shops buy salvaged parts from junkyards too. If original, new equipment is not specified on the contract when they work on a car, there is a good chance they will order a used part. Insurance companies also encourage the practice because they love being able to use a salvaged replacement part for a car instead of the cost of a new one. There’s nothing wrong with installing used parts other than that they usually don’t tell the customer. There is not much difference between a used car door and a new one. 

 

Many of us, myself included, have walked up and down the rows of these cars and trucks looking for a vehicle like the one we own. From the old junkyard car, we too can salvage a needed part at a price much lower than we would have to pay to buy it from a car dealer or regular auto parts store. I have replaced door handles, trunk lids, car seats, and other items over the years, saving myself hundreds of dollars and recycling these parts back into use. 

 

This is the main purpose of this type of junkyard. They are for recycling parts from wrecked and no-longer-running vehicles. Whether for a two year old Honda or a 1932 Plymouth, salvage yards are sometimes the only place we can find an original replacement part. Some of these salvage yards specializing in certain classic cars do hundreds of thousands in business each year. Many of them are known across the country as the go-to place for a Corvette part or other classic vehicle. Many of these salvage yards are run as professional businesses and take every precaution to be a good neighbor and protect the environment. 

 

These automobile junkyards can be a small group of a dozen rusting cars to a huge metal recycling operation spread out over 20-30 acres. There are some vast junkyards, such as Desert Valley Auto Parts, claiming 10,000 autos to choose parts from, or Turner’s Auto Wrecking in Fresno, California, with 100 acres of old cars to pick parts or bodies from. Others specialize in motorcycles such as All Bikes in Rye, Arizona, owned by Ron Adler, estimated to have over 9,000 motorcycles in his yard before they went up in smoke in 2013.

 

1. Automobile Junkyard

 

While some of the millions of cars disposed of each year may go to automotive parts yards, far more go a different way. According to statistics from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics,11.047 million cars were scrapped in 2014 in the United States. They can no longer serve their purpose to provide us with transportation, so they are broken down to what they are made of: plastic, metal, rubber, foam, and other materials. 

 

This is the second type of junkyard. Old cars go here to die and have no value but scrap value. Automobiles are made up of about 50% metal. The rest is plastic, glass, upholstery, and other material. These junkyards are dedicated to getting every dollar in value they can with the least effort from the remains of the old vehicle. The metal is the most valuable material to recover and make money from. The rest is usually garbage. 

 

What happens in this scrapyard usually depends on what type of equipment the junkyard has. Some of the largest junkyards can take an entire car, place it onto a conveyor belt, and crush it into a small, dense package to reduce the volume. Then, the entire crushed car is sent into a shredder that rips it apart into small pieces. The pieces are sorted out in another conveyor line to metals, plastics, and other materials for recycling or disposing of. 

 

One machine like this operates in Jersey City, New Jersey, and can reduce a car to tiny metal scrap in 10 seconds. Some days the giant machine shreds 4,000 tons of metal into scrap. In Elkhart, Indiana, another monster machine dubbed the Mega Shredder chews up about six cars per minute. It was even featured on Modern Marvels on the History Channel. The Mega Shredder only operated for a couple of years before it was shut down and the company went bankrupt. There was tremendous opposition to the shredder from the community because the vibrations were felt all over the area. When the company closed down, the property where the junkyard sat was declared a hazardous waste site with the groundwater polluted by materials from the vehicles it recycled. 

 

However, most junkyards can’t afford these large machines, so they use a more labor-intensive method. Some have small shredders to tear the vehicles into smaller pieces and sort out the metals using magnets. Others use blow torches to cut away the biggest chunks of metal they can and remove the engine blocks. Hammers, torches, grinders–they can use anything that will separate out the metal from the rest of the car. The large portions of metal that are cut, crushed, shredded, or chopped apart are sent out to be recycled. The rest of the material, 50% of the car by volume, is shredded remnants or piles of other materials, known as fluff in the industry. This lovely mixture of foam, plastic, rubber, glass, fabric, and more is also contaminated with rust, fluids, dirt, and anything else that was in the vehicle and not removed with the metal.  

 

The metal scrap is sent off to giant smelters to be melted down and reused. Some junkyards actually have smelters operating on their property that present significant environmental risk for the area. Luckily, most don’t, so the metal gets shipped off, and the fluff either gets dumped into a big pile or sent off someplace out of the way. 

 

III. Junk Junkyard

 

These types of junkyards usually will also accept any type of metal or recyclable material of value from whoever can drag, pull, or push it in. Cars are usually the favorite as they are heavy with metal and easily able to be sold to dealers for scrap. Other items of interest to them include washing machines, scrap wire, furniture, old shelving, pallet racks, metal ducting, and so on. The scrapyard’s main interest is to buy anything at as low a price as possible and sell for as high as possible to the recycling broker or someone else who may want the item. 

 

Scrapyards such as these are usually located in urban areas located near industrial sections or within poorer neighborhoods. Bags of aluminum cans and plastic bottles all come in with washers, dryers, and broken air conditioners. Many of these junkyards also handle industrial scrap, like old machinery, empty metal drums, and broken parts. Along with the industrial scrap may also come old transformers containing PCBs and residues in metal drums from solvents and toxic chemicals. Sometimes, even, there are junkyards that will accept drums of unknown liquids and material and disappear it among the piles.

 

In the end, a junkyard is a junkyard. It doesn’t really matter what type of junkyard is nearby. The environmental risks for all of them are quite similar. It does not matter whether the cars are used for parts or scrap metal, or if the yard contains washers, refrigerators, or whatever; they still sit outside exposed to the elements. Over the course of time, they lay there rusting, rotting, and leaking. These junkyards are not simply eyesores to the community and neighbors. They are also potential hazardous operations. In many cases, they are handling materials that are toxic and hazardous to people and the environment. In almost every community, there are laws carefully licensing and regulating these operations because, in the past, serious issues created health problems and very expensive clean-up bills. As is almost always the case, it was the people living nearby whose health and property were affected, and it was the taxpayers of the town who had to pay to clean up the mess. Most of the sloppy junkyard operators, when harassed too much, simply close down, file for bankruptcy, and move on, leaving their destruction and toxic messes behind. 

 

While there are strict regulations governing the procedures of draining and disposing of the liquids, operators may look for shortcuts. Economics dictates compliance. It costs money to properly dispose of these wastes, and the chances of getting caught is very low. One of the huge problems with scrapyards is that even though there are regulations in place with respect to air emissions, hazardous waste storage and disposal, and water and soil contamination, there is usually no enforcement or inspections. Inspections usually only take place after a complaint is made related to a bad odor, sloppy appearance, or the smell of Freon being released into the air. 

 

Unethical operators have become excellent at covering their tracks. Investigations have shown a variety of cost-cutting and potentially dangerous ways salvage yards do this. Their records may show a regular pick up of hazardous waste materials by a licensed disposal company, but this may only represent a portion of the actual volume of liquids drained and collected from the vehicles. The rest may be drained inside of a building directly down a drain leading to the municipal sewer system. There may be small drums of these poisons thrown into the salvage yard dumpster to be collected as regular solid waste. At worst, it could just be drained onto the ground to seep into the groundwater and run off to the adjacent properties. There are simply too many places that need to be inspected but very few inspectors. When inspections do happen, many times the operators do not correct the violations, and it could be a few years until they are inspected again. 

 

An article written by American Recycler, a large recycling industry news organization stated, “Scrap metal and automotive recyclers handle a wide and complex variety of hazardous substances that could potentially trickle down from storm water runoff and contaminate drinking water or pollute rivers, lakes and oceans.”

 

Much of the negative environmental hazards occur when the cars are being dismantled for the reusable parts the scrapyards want to resell. Toxic materials travel to you in several ways.

 

1. Water Pollution

 

This is without a doubt the greatest danger from these junkyards. This is not just the potential for a little bit of pollution in the water; this is the possible contamination of an entire town’s aquifer. 

 

A major problem with these salvage operations is when old vehicles are first brought into the junkyard, the fluids in these vehicles are not properly drained. Over time, an assortment of toxic liquids seep from these rusting, rotting hulks into the ground. Antifreeze, oil, transmission fluid, and especially highly toxic battery acid create a puddle of toxic soup that works its way into the ground beneath the junkyard. If the yard is simply a processor and quickly crushed the cars for scrap, the fluids simply mix together into a toxic soup.

 

Groundwater and surface water pollution are of primary concern. Many of the toxic materials in automobiles find their way through the soil into aquifers below, contaminating wells. Freon from air conditioning systems, asbestos from old brake linings, lead from batteries, and many other metals and toxins are in old vehicles, and those chemicals can make their way into the soil. Oil leaking from old cars is a common pollutant found in groundwater near junkyards. Surface pollution under the vehicles runs off during wet conditions and winds up in streams and creeks nearby. Health effects of ingesting water contaminated with oil, gasoline, and these other pollutants can lead to respiratory system damage, liver damage, and increased risk cancer. Hydrocarbons and heavy metals in gasoline also may cause reproductive problems and birth defects. 

 

Acid from old and cracked batteries leaks. Since lead acid batteries are not usually accepted at landfills, they wind up at scrap yards. If ingested, lead causes cognitive and developmental issues in children. In adults, it causes neurological issues. 

 

Antifreeze and coolants that are not drained simply leak out of the vehicle as it sits or when it is crushed. Antifreeze, when it gets into groundwater, can quickly contaminate many gallons of a water supply. 

 

Many city and town water supplies are also contaminated with the gas additive MTBE. This additive was phased out in the late 2000s and replaced with another product for oxygenated gas.  However, many of the existing cars in junkyards had it in their gas tanks when they were disposed of. Health effects of MTBE were studied and still remain somewhat unknown in humans. The EPA did conclude though, there is evidence showing it is carcinogenic in animal testing. Children with asthma, the ederly, and people with autoimmune diseases may be more susceptible to toxicity at lower levels. Because of a strong odor and taste in water contaminated with MTBE, it makes much of the water supply undrinkable when present. 

 

Mercury is one of the most dangerous pollutants found regularly in junkyards. Not many people are aware that many switches in vehicles have mercury in them, which by law are supposed to be removed, collected, and inventoried. Even if the fluids are removed properly, the switches usually are not. These switches rot and will eventually leak mercury onto the ground. There currently are quite a few states that encourage salvage yards to remove switches by paying cash in exchange for collecting them and turning them in. In the meantime, the rest of that mercury is ending up in the water supply.  Mercury is highly toxic and causes damage to the brain, liver, and kidneys. 

 

Asbestos from brake linings in older cars commonly gets into the water supply as weather corrodes the car. Ingesting levels of asbestos in drinking water has been known to cause intestinal polyps. 

 

Heavy metals used in the car itself are subject to corrosion of the body and parts. Metals such as arsenic, zinc, copper, chromium, aluminum, lead, and cadmium are commonly found in measurable amounts in water near these facilities. These metals, if ingested by people through contaminated water, accumulate in their body tissues. A person does not need to ingest a large amount at one time. Very small amounts over time will make a person sick too. Copper can cause kidney and liver damage as well as anemia. Cadmium can lead to lung disease, bone defects, and renal failure.

 

2. Soil and more Groundwater Pollution

 

As these liquids seep into the soil, they eventually find their way into the groundwater. This contamination can spread out like a plume from the junkyard and wind up in the nearby properties’ wells. There is very little that can be done at the operation site to correct the problem once it has occurred. Remediation would necessitate the removal of all the soil from the area, as well as pumping out and purifying the groundwater beneath the site.

 

Licensed and unlicensed facilities like these exist everywhere across the country. These  junkyards number in the tens of thousands. New regulations in quite a few states recently addressed this problem by requiring that a car, prior to being placed in a junkyard, must have had all its fluids drained and the battery removed. This is a great way to keep any new facility that is just beginning operation in check, but for all the existing facilities out there, it may already be too late. The surrounding area’s water may already be contaminated.

 

In Kingsbury, New York, a junkyard operating a car crushing business was fined over $350,000 for pollution and violating state regulations. The junkyard was located in an area with residential properties on three sides and a school on the fourth. They were repeatedly cited by the state environmental agency for illegally discharging harmful chemicals into the surrounding air and water. Nearby neighbors complained about headaches, difficulty breathing, nausea, and noise from the junkyard. The state also contends the junkyard discharged oil at the site itself and the surrounding area.

 

In downtown Phoenix, Arizona, an auto salvage yard operated for years recycling old cars and shredding the remaining 25% of material left into fluff. Unfortunately, the fluff contained many toxic materials, and after years of operation, extensive contamination was discovered in the fluff piles. Dangerously high levels of PCBs and various heavy metals such as lead, cadmium, arsenic, and chromium were present in the soil. The site was so toxic that the EPA declared it a Superfund site. Cleaning the site required the removal of almost 6,000 tons of hazardous waste. A cover of concrete was eventually poured over the top to contain what was unable to be removed. 

 

In Lynn, Massachusetts, a junkyard was shut down for illegally dumping hazardous waste on its property. Police went to the site and said gasoline, antifreeze, and oil were being dumped onto the ground everywhere. A member of the town council expressed concern the contaminants were going to run into the Saugus River, which is along the property border. The town ordered the junkyard to cease operations, but there are reports people continued to do work there and have been seen in the middle of the night. One town council member witnessed people taking a load of oil drums, tires, and other materials and dumping them out back. After police responded, many buried items were discovered. Crushed up fiberglass, gas, and oil appears to have been buried as well. In 2018, the city finally was able to shut down the junkyard. Environmental evaluation of the damage is ongoing. Several communities depend on the Saugus for part of their drinking water supply, so the stakes are high. 

 

In Potsdam, New York, a junkyard where metals were prepared for recycling is being cleaned up after years of toxic chemicals contaminated the ground and wetlands nearby. The state estimates the cleanup will take a year and cost upwards of $10 million. The company who operated the junkyard contaminated the soil with cancer-causing PCBs and many other toxic chemicals. The groundwater is not used for drinking or other household purposes, so for now the potential for poisoning the water supply is minimal. How much of the contamination traveled off the site during the years and landed on nearby properties is an open question nobody is looking into. The plan for cleanup is to remove the most contaminated soil and leave the rest on the site. The lesser contaminated soil the state wants to place in a lake on one area of the site. Most likely, this property will be classified as a brownfield down the road and allowed to be used for a project another developer proposes. 

 

3. Air Pollution

 

There are quite a few ways the air near junkyards carries hazardous materials to the surrounding area. Freon from old air conditioners, refrigerators, and other appliances is emitted into the air as the old materials are drained and released. There are regulations strictly governing how to deal with old refrigerants because they are so harmful to the environment, especially the ozone layer which Freon gas destroys. Freon can also be dangerous to people. Inhaling Freon and other refrigerant gases cuts off the oxygen supply to the brain. Other symptoms of exposure to the gas include irritation of eyes and throat, dizziness, and nausea. Usually, the exposure to gas vented at a junkyard is not severe enough to cause poisoning, but the gas certainly is a hazard to inhale. 

 

Old types of Freon such as those found in vehicles at junkyards are usually the ones no longer in use. Some junkyards follow the law by capturing the old Freon and disposing of it properly, but many licensed and illegal yards just bleed it out into the air because it’s free disposal.

 

In addition, most junkyards operate shredders and crushers that are constantly creating airborne particles of all the metals and contaminants as the machines buzz along, cutting through chunks of metal. The metal that appears to go missing when someone uses a blowtorch or other cutting or chopping equipment to make a cut goes someplace. That place is into the air.

 

Another major junkyard concern with later model cars is the airbags. Airbags contain sodium azide, which is an explosive. It will burn the skin if it comes into contact with it and causes major irritation to the lungs if inhaled. It is considered a hazardous waste when disposed of. When a car is crushed in a compactor, if the bags are not properly removed first, they explode, releasing their chemicals into the air. Because airbags are worth money in the parts market, junkyards try to recover them when possible, but many end up exploding, and many more were already blown apart.  The sodium azide just blows off or gets washed away. 

 

Some junkyards also operate onsite smelters in order to melt down recovered metals to recycle them. This may sound eco-friendly, but, factoring in human health, it is one of the most dangerous operations a community can be exposed to. Smelters send heavy metals, especially high levels of lead, into the air. Quite a few Superfund sites are in locations where smelters operated for years, blowing toxic levels of various poisons into the community for everyone to breathe. Many people have documented cancer, kidney disease, lung ailments, and other illnesses directly related to the operation of a smelter nearby. 

 

In Fairfield, California, a recycling center that scraps appliances was caught burning hazardous waste at their facility. In addition to illegally disposing of hazardous waste, they were also cited for improper storage of the waste. Further investigations determined the scrapyard also had been draining refrigerant from appliances for years by cutting the lines on the appliances to let it drain out. They were cited for removing hazardous materials they were neither trained to handle nor permitted to remove. Refrigerants need to be removed in a special way with special tools to ensure they do not escape into the atmosphere, releasing the harmful compounds. This scrapyard was using a bolt cutter and a container of water. A fine of over $145,000 was given to the company. 

 

In a residential neighborhood of West Oakland, California, a scrapyard/recycling center was melting down aluminum and other metals for the repurposing market. Elevated levels of lead, mercury, manganese, nickel, and arsenic were all detected by local environmental health officials in the air at emission levels over the safe limit. Health effects of exposure to these include asthma, kidney disease, cancer, and neurological disorders.

 

In Claymont, Delaware, a plant that recycles scrap metal was sending high levels of particulate matter into the neighborhood. Heavy metals were detected in the air, including lead and mercury. These metals cause developmental disorders in unborn babies, learning disabilities in children, and blood diseases and nervous system disorders in adults. The residents knew something was wrong with air quality in the area, but they needed to call in an outside environmental consultant to do air monitoring. Armed with new information, the residents got the state to finally do something. The state environmental agency found the plant had been melting down switches taken from scrapped cars and emitting mercury in levels much higher than those reported to the state. This plant ranked in the top 20 emitters of mercury in the nation for several years. 

 

In Houston, Texas, a single metal recycling facility had a total of 41 fires and explosions over a four month period. An overall investigation by the Texas environmental agency determined many facilities that process metal for scrap emit high levels of cancer-causing chemicals and heavy metals. 

 

Some scrap yards go so far as to burn the rubber coating off of metal wire so they can recover the wire for recycling. Boilers onsite use old oil from the car to heat their buildings. Open air burning may be used to dispose of items that have no scrap or resale value to avoid disposal costs. Sometimes they use an incinerator to dispose of the useless scrap. Most times, practices like these are unregulated. However, when solid waste, especially plastic, is burned, it creates dioxins.

 

These are only most of the potential reasons a junkyard is a risky place to live near. But these are just the most likely reasons; there are a few more Tony and I could probably have added, but it would be overkill. Junkyards do not make good neighbors. 

 

Give any type of a junkyard at least a half mile distance to protect yourself from any airborne contaminants. If you use well water, have it tested twice a year, especially for volatile organic compounds frequently found in petroleum products and heavy metals. While a half mile is a good buffer, Tony and I actually prefer a full mile distance as these places present so many possible problems. Further is always better when possible.