Vehicles that are permanently withdrawn from use must be taken to an official facility for recycling and free final deregistration. Under Finnish law, the owner or holder of a vehicle may also temporarily decommission the vehicle from traffic use in Finland.
“You should only use decommissioning, which means taking your vehicle temporarily off the road, if you plan to start using your vehicle again later on. For example, many take hobby vehicles into use only for the summer season to avoid vehicle taxes when the vehicle is unused,” explains Markku Erkheikki, Development Manager. “However, if you want to permanently withdraw your vehicle from use, instead of decommissioning, you should submit it to the official recycling system. This way the vehicle is deregistered correctly and it does not cost you anything,” Erkheikki notes.
Vehicle owner is responsible for scrapping, manufacturers and importers for recycling
Vehicle manufacturers or importers must organise appropriate recycling for end-of-life vehicles. This recycling obligation applies to passenger vehicles, vans and other corresponding vehicles. Manufacturers or importers must provide take-back points for end-of-life vehicles so that holders of such vehicles can recycle them easily and free-of-charge. Finnish Car Recycling Ltd is responsible for these operations. The company has a nationwide network of take-back points that recycle end-of-life vehicles and also tractors or trailers withdrawn from use, for example.
The last holder of the vehicle is responsible for delivering an end-of-life vehicle for recycling. The holder receives a certificate of destruction for delivering the vehicle for official recycling and the final deregistration is entered into the Transport Register maintained by the Finnish Transport and Communications Agency Traficom. Recycling and deregistering an end-of-life vehicle does not cost the holder anything. “It is vital to take an end-of-life vehicle to an official Finnish Car Recycling take-back point for scrapping. Unofficial operators cannot deregister the vehicle, which means that the according to the register, the owner still has the vehicle,” Erkheikki emphasises. In 2018, the number is issued certificates of destruction was 88,362 whereas in 2017, it was 72,710. “The number of issued certificates increased nicely. One factor behind this trend was the scrapping premium for passenger cars,” Erkheikki smiles.
Some may become vehicles of ‘unknown whereabouts’
In 2018, Traficom received 1,004,604 notifications for temporary decommissioning of vehicles and 861,938 notifications for taking such vehicles back into traffic use. At the end of 2018, a total of 908,031 vehicles had been decommissioned for a continuous period two years. 534,256 of these vehicles were passenger cars or vans. “It looks like some of the temporary decommissions will turn into permanent, as the number of vehicles that had been decommissioned for more than two years increased by roughly 125,000 vehicles compared to the end of 2017. At least some of the vehicles that have been decommissioned for a long time can be vehicles of unknown whereabouts, which means that they may have been scrapped by an unofficial operator or permanently exported without a proper notification. We are very concerned about this trend,” says Markku Erkheikki, Development Manager.
The problem with permanently exported vehicles is that the export is not necessarily entered into the register. In 2018, a total of 12,445 vehicles were deregistered due to permanent export to Åland or a foreign country, or registration in Åland or abroad. “We receive information from other EU and EEA countries about vehicles in the Finnish register that have been registered in these countries. Based on this information, we can deregister these vehicles in Finland and they will not appear in the statistics,” Erkheikki explains. “However, we do not receive any information about vehicles exported outside the EU or EEA unless the owner or holder provides us a document about the permanent export. Therefore, these vehicles can still appear in the register” Erkheikki continues.
Recycling an end-of-life vehicle is an environmental action
Scrapping premium campaigns have aimed at promoting sales of new low-emission passenger vehicles and boosting the recycling of end-of-life vehicles. Mechanisms to promote recycling must be developed continuously. Nevertheless, Erkheikki also likes to emphasise that everyone must take responsibility of their environment: “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, as they say. However, for the environment's sake, it is very important to take vehicles lying about rusting in yards and woods to be recycled appropriately. I hope that all of us face their responsibility for our nature and environment. By keeping the environment clean, we also keep the register up to date.”
Statistics:
Statistics on vehicle fleet (External link)
See also:
Decommissioning (External link)
Final deregistration and scrapping (External link)
Enquiries:
Markku Erkheikki, Development Manager, tel. +358 295 347 101, markku.erkheikki(at)traficom.fi
Anne-Mari Erkkilä, Head of Unit, tel. +358 295 347 263, anne-mari.erkkila(at)traficom.fi