A
scrapyard or
junkyard (
American EnglishAmerican English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States....
) is the location of a dismantling business where wrecked or decommissioned vehicles are brought, their usable parts are sold for use in operating vehicles, while the unusable metal parts, known as
scrapScrap is a term used to describe recyclable and other materials left over from every manner of product consumption, such as parts of vehicles, building supplies, and surplus materials. Unlike waste, scrap has significant monetary value...
metal parts, are sold to metal-
recyclingRecycling is processing used materials into new products to prevent waste of potentially useful materials, reduce the consumption of fresh raw materials, reduce energy usage, reduce air pollution and water pollution by reducing the need for "conventional" waste disposal, and lower greenhouse...
companies. Other terms include
wreck yard,
wrecker's yard,
salvage yard,
breakers yard,
dismantler and
scrapheap). In the United Kingdom, car salvage yards are known as
car breakers, while motorcycle salvage yards are known as
bike breakers.
Types of wreck yards
The most common type of wreck yards are
automobileAn automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor...
wreck yards, but junkyards for
motorcycleA motorcycle is a single-track, two-wheeled motor vehicle. Motorcycles vary considerably depending on the task for which they are designed, such as long distance travel, navigating congested urban traffic, cruising, sport and racing, or off-road conditions.Motorcycles are one of the most...
s,
bicycleA bicycle, also known as a bike, pushbike or cycle, is a human-powered, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A person who rides a bicycle is called a cyclist, or bicyclist....
s, small
planeA fixed-wing aircraft is an aircraft capable of flight using wings that generate lift due to the vehicle's forward airspeed. Fixed-wing aircraft are distinct from rotary-wing aircraft in which wings rotate about a fixed mast and ornithopters in which lift is generated by flapping wings.A powered...
s and
boatA boat is a watercraft of any size designed to float or plane, to provide passage across water. Usually this water will be inland or in protected coastal areas. However, boats such as the whaleboat were designed to be operated from a ship in an offshore environment. In naval terms, a boat is a...
s exist too.
Scrapyard
A
scrapScrap is a term used to describe recyclable and other materials left over from every manner of product consumption, such as parts of vehicles, building supplies, and surplus materials. Unlike waste, scrap has significant monetary value...
yard is a recycling center that buys and sells scrap metal. Scrapyards are effectively a
scrap metalScrap Metal were a band from Broome, Western Australia who played rock music with elements of country and reggae. The members had Aboriginal, Irish, Filipino, French, Chinese, Scottish, Indonesian and Japanese heritage. The band toured nationally as part of the Bran Nue Dae musical and with...
brokerage. Scrap yards typically buy any base metal; for example,
ironIron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series. It is the most common element forming the planet Earth as a whole, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust...
,
steelSteel is an alloy that consists mostly of iron and has a carbon content between 0.2% and 2.1% by weight, depending on the grade. Carbon is the most common alloying material for iron, but various other alloying elements are used, such as manganese, chromium, vanadium, and tungsten...
,
stainless steelIn metallurgy, stainless steel, also known as inox steel or inox from French "inoxydable", is defined as a steel alloy with a minimum of 10.5 or 11% chromium content by mass....
,
brassBrass is an alloy of copper and zinc; the proportions of zinc and copper can be varied to create a range of brasses with varying properties.In comparison, bronze is principally an alloy of copper and tin...
,
copperCopper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is soft and malleable; an exposed surface has a reddish-orange tarnish...
, aluminum,
zincZinc , or spelter , is a metallic chemical element; it has the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. It is the first element in group 12 of the periodic table. Zinc is, in some respects, chemically similar to magnesium, because its ion is of similar size and its only common oxidation state is +2...
,
nickelNickel is a chemical element with the chemical symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel belongs to the transition metals and is hard and ductile...
, and
leadLead is a main-group element in the carbon group with the symbol Pb and atomic number 82. Lead is a soft, malleable poor metal. It is also counted as one of the heavy metals. Metallic lead has a bluish-white color after being freshly cut, but it soon tarnishes to a dull grayish color when exposed...
would all be found at a modern-day scrapyard. Scrapyards will often buy electronics, appliances, and metal vehicles. Scrapyards will sell their accumulations of metals either to refineries or larger scrap brokers.
Metal theftMetal theft is the theft of metal items on a very large scale. These thefts usually increase when worldwide prices for scrap metal rise. In recent years, prices for metals have risen dramatically due to rapid industrialization in India and China...
is committed so thieves can sell stolen copper or other stolen valuable metals to scrapyards.
Operation
Many salvage yards operate on a local level—when an automobile is severely damaged, is malfunctioning beyond repair, or not worth the repair, the owner may sell it to a junkyard; in some cases—as when the car has become disabled in a place where derelict cars are not allowed to be left—the car owner will pay the wrecker to haul the car away. The salvage yard will usually tow the vehicle from its location to the yard. At the salvage yard the automobiles are typically arranged in rows, often stacked on top of one another. Inventories are kept in the office, as to the usable parts in each car, as well as the car's location in the yard. Most yards have computerized inventory systems.
In recent years it has become common to use satellite part finder services to contact multiple salvage yards from a single source. In the 20th century these were
call centreA call centre or call center is a centralised office used for the purpose of receiving and transmitting a large volume of requests by telephone. A call centre is operated by a company to administer incoming product support or information inquiries from consumers. Outgoing calls for telemarketing,...
s that charged a premium rate for calls and compiled a facsimile that was sent to various salvage yards so they could respond directly if the part was in stock. Many of these are now Web-based with requests for parts being e-mailed instantly.
Often parts for which there is high demand are removed from cars and brought to the salvage yard's
warehouseA warehouse is a commercial building for storage of goods. Warehouses are used by manufacturers, importers, exporters, wholesalers, transport businesses, customs, etc. They are usually large plain buildings in industrial areas of cities and towns. They usually have loading docks to load and unload...
. Then a customer who asks for a specific part can get it immediately, without having to wait for the salvage yard employees to remove that part. Some salvage yards expect customers to remove the part themselves, or allow this at a substantially reduced price compared to having the junkyard's staff remove it. This style of yard is often referred to as a "You Pull It" yard. However, it is more common for a
customerA customer is usually used to refer to a current or potential buyer or user of the products of an individual or organization, called the supplier, seller, or vendor. This is typically through purchasing or renting goods or services...
to call in and inquire whether the specific item he needs is available. If the yard has the requested item, the customer is usually asked to leave a
depositA deposit account is a current account, savings account, or other type of bank account, at a banking institution that allows money to be deposited and withdrawn by the account holder. These transactions are recorded on the bank's books, and the resulting balance is recorded as a liability for the...
and to come to pick up the part at a later time. The part is typically installed by the customer or agent ("the customer's
mechanicA mechanic is a craftsman or technician who uses tools to build or repair machinery.Many mechanics are specialized in a particular field such as auto mechanics, bicycle mechanics, motorcycle mechanics, boiler mechanics, general mechanics, industrial maintenance mechanics , air conditioning and...
"); however, some salvage yards also provide installation services.
The parts typically dismantled from automobiles are any small and easily removable items, such as the light assemblies (commonly known as just "lights",
e.g. headlights, blinkers, taillights), seats, parts of the
exhaust systemAn exhaust system is usually tubing used to guide reaction exhaust gases away from a controlled combustion inside an engine or stove. The entire system conveys burnt gases from the engine and includes one or more exhaust pipes...
,
mirrorA mirror is an object that reflects light or sound in a way that preserves much of its original quality prior to its contact with the mirror. Some mirrors also filter out some wavelengths, while preserving other wavelengths in the reflection...
s,
hubcapA hubcap, wheel cover or wheel trim is a decorative disk on an automobile wheel that covers at least a central portion of the wheel. Cars with stamped steel wheels often use a full wheel cover that conceals the entire wheel. Cars with alloy wheels or styled steel wheels generally use smaller...
s etc. However, in many instances, major parts such as the
engineThe internal combustion engine is an engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer in a combustion chamber. In an internal combustion engine, the expansion of the high-temperature and high -pressure gases produced by combustion apply direct force to some component of the engine...
and
transmissionA machine consists of a power source and a power transmission system, which provides controlled application of the power. Merriam-Webster defines transmission as: an assembly of parts including the speed-changing gears and the propeller shaft by which the power is transmitted from an engine to a...
are removed and sold, usually to auto-parts companies that will rebuild the part and resell it with a warranty. Other, usually very large, junkyards will rebuild and sell such parts themselves. Unbroken
windshieldThe windshield or windscreen of an aircraft, car, bus, motorbike or tram is the front window. Modern windshields are generally made of laminated safety glass, a type of treated glass, which consists of two curved sheets of glass with a plastic layer laminated between them for safety, and are glued...
s and
windowA window is a transparent or translucent opening in a wall or door that allows the passage of light and, if not closed or sealed, air and sound. Windows are usually glazed or covered in some other transparent or translucent material like float glass. Windows are held in place by frames, which...
s may also be removed intact and resold to car-owners needing replacements. Some salvage yards will keep older cars in good body condition and sell them to amateur car builders and collectors, who will restore ("rebuild") the car for their own entertainment. These cars are known as "rebuilders."
Once vehicles in a wrecking yard have no more usable parts, the hulks are usually sold to a scrap-metal processor, who will usually
crush the bodiesA car crusher is an industrial device used to reduce the dimensions of derelict cars prior to transport for recycling.Car crushers are compactors and can be of two types: "pancake", where a scrap automobile is flattened by a huge descending hydraulically-powered plate, or the baling press type,...
on-site at the yard's premises using a mobile baling press, Shredder, or flattener, with final disposal occurring within a hammer mill which literally smashes the vehicle remains into fist sized chunks.