Consideration of CO2 Emission Reduction Potential by Utilizing Recycled Automobile Parts in China

In Japan, efforts have been made to reduce CO2 emissions by utilizing recycled parts of automobiles for more than 10 years, and an annual amount of reduction in CO2 emission of approximately 130,000–140,000 tons per year has been estimated. This initiative has received a great deal of attention globally in the field of automobile recycling; however, we need to examine whether the strategy of utilizing recycled auto parts for CO2 emission reduction can be applied overseas. In China, which has the largest number of vehicles in the world, the effect of reducing CO2 emissions through the use of used automobile parts has not been investigated. However, based on the number of payments for non-life insurance accidents in China, we estimated the potential for reducing CO2 emissions through the use of used automobile parts based on the number of traffic accidents in China, using current data from Japan, and obtained the result of 5952 t-CO2/Y on average over 5 years. In addition, we collected information on the current situation of automobile recycling, administrative efforts, and policies and conducted a fact-finding survey and analysis of specific methods and issues regarding the introduction of Japanese-style CO2 emission reduction programs in China.