Everyone knows that once you are done with something, you simply throw it into the trash. Well, that is untrue for some devices and things, for example, batteries. You can’t simply throw them everywhere, because they contain toxic materials which when they seep into the ground, can cause problems, especially if they reach underwater rivers. 

What about things which are larger, heavier, and otherwise more difficult to dispose of, such as cars? Where do cars eventually end up when they are completely done for? There are a couple of options, depending on the owner and the state of the car.

Cars Sold for Parts

When a car is done for, as in, it would cost much more money to repair it rather than for it to be sold for parts, then the owner can choose to sell their car for parts, if there are any working ones. 

These parts can either go to resellers who will then sell them at a higher price. These people often deal with selling and reselling parts, so they are typically the ones to first pounce at an opportunity to get parts cheap.

The other is an individual owner who has the same car but needs spare parts. Some owners, if they plan on keeping their car for a longer period of time, purchase an entire car in parts or to be used for spare parts. Cars which are no longer to be repaired can do this job very well and for a relatively cheap sum.

Completely Dead Cars

If a car is completely done for, it might end up in a landfill or garbage dump. Some people deal exclusively with metal objects such as cars, trucks, refrigerators, at least the old ones, as well as anything remotely heavy. 

When a car is completely done for, you sell it for its weight in metal, and not for its value as a vehicle. For those who have lots of metal, or rather, heavy machinery or vehicles which are unnecessary and cannot be fixed, they should definitely consider selling them to a dump, as that way they can actually make use of the otherwise unusable car.

They Might Be Recycled

Depending on the age of the car, sometimes the manufacturer is interested in recycling the car, or rather, selling and shipping the working parts to other countries which are still going to use the cars for decades to come. 

This is typically done in Japan, where Japanese manufacturers send used cars to be sold for parts in other parts of the world, which are likely to drive these cars for another decade or two, thus making use of all of the parts, and not just sending them to a car crusher, an industrial compactor which flattens cars so that they can be transported with ease to be recycled.

And with that, you can get an idea of where cars go to spend their eternity. Some are still used as parts, some are completely crushed and recycled while some end up on a dump and await either recycling or are left to rot.