What does car decontamination mean? What are the steps of this process?
Once the car is written off/retired, it goes through a decontamination process, where all liquid and solid waste is removed with the help of special equipment. The process consists of the following steps:
- Remove the car battery and store it in a special box. The battery contains acids and lead elements that are hazardous to the environment.
- Removal of radiator and brake fluids, engine oils and fuels. All fluids are removed with the help of pumps and stored in special tanks.
- Removal of air conditioning fluids with a special device.
- Airbag deactivation using a special device. The device “pops” the airbags in a controlled manner to prevent an unexpected explosion.
- Removal of the catalyst using special scissors and storage in a special box.
Once the decontamination is complete, the remaining materials (e.g. bumpers, engine, etc.) are removed from the car for final recycling or sale as used spare parts.
