Reception Centres are facilities in which ELVs can be delivered for free by their owners/holders, remaining in storage until they are transported to dismantling centres. Reception Centres cannot issue the ELV’s Certificate of Destruction, and should have:

• A waterproof surface of 500m2 or more;
• A fire combat system;
• A system that allows for the collection and treatment of rainwater, cleaning water and spills;
• Fencing that prevents access to the facility.

The entry into operation of the Reception Centres depends on licensing by the Ministry of the Environment, under the terms of Decree Law no. 73/2011.

The Dismantling Centres are facilities in which ELVs may be delivered for free by their owners/holders. Dismantling Centres may issue an ELV’s Certificate of Destruction and should have:

• A waterproof surface of 500m2 or more;
• A fire combat system;
• Fencing that prevents access to the facility;
• A pneumatic depollution unit and ELV dismantling equipment;
• Appropriate and duly identified containers for the storage of components/materials extracted from ELVs.

Within Dismantling Centres, ELVs are submitted to two types of operation: depollution operations and operations to promote reuse and recycling.

Depollution operations consist in the removal of components considered hazard, such as the battery, fluids (lubricating oils, hydraulic oils, engine coolant, air-conditioning fluid, etc.), LPG deposits, as well as in the neutralization of pyrotechnic components (air-bags and seatbelt pre-tensioners).

Operations to promote reuse and recycling consist in the extraction of several components that are sold as second-hand parts (i.e. headlights, doors, engine) or for recycling (i.e. catalytic converters, tyres, glass, bumpers).

The entry into operation of the Dismantling Centres depends on licensing by the Ministry of the Environment, under the terms of Decree Law no. 73/2011. After it has been licensed, an ELV dismantling centre operator may apply to join the VALORCAR NETWORK, within the scope of selection procedures opened periodically.

All components and materials extracted from ELVs are sent away to be reused, recycled and for energy recovery, or to be appropriately disposed of, when there is no other option.

Transport is a crucial operation for the management of ELVs since, when carried out under deficient conditions, it can restrain or even preclude the necessary subsequent operations of depollution/dismantling.

National Transport

It is forbidden to make changes to the physical form of ELVs during loading, transport and/or unloading, namely:

• By means of the use of metal grapples for loading/unloading operations – as an alternative, forklifts, belts or winches, or other equivalent methods, should be used;
• By the direct overlapping of ELVs on the decks – as an alternative, a system of separation between layers should be used.


Therefore, aiming to minimize the occurrence of damage, ELV transport should preferably be carried out using breakdown vehicles or car carrier trailers.

The transport of hulks from dismantling centres is accompanied by a copy of the respective Certificate of Destruction or a single document that contains information relating to them, namely the vehicle registration, chassis number and the number of the respective Certificate of Destruction.

In addition to these specific guidelines, the transport of ELVs and their components/materials must also comply with the regulations foreseen in Decree no. 145/2017 on the transport of waste.

International Transport

In the cases in which ELVs and their components/materials are exported/imported, it is necessary to take into consideration the fact that there are specific rules for the transboundary movement of waste – Regulation (EC) no. 1013/2006, Decree Law no. 45/2008 and Decree no. 242/2008.

This legislation establishes the procedures and control systems according to the origin, destination and route of the transfers, the type of waste (green, amber and red lists) and the type of treatment to which the waste will be subject at its destination (disposal/recovery). The Portuguese Environment Protection Agency is the national competent authority on this issue.

The Dismantling Centres send the dismantled ELVs (hulks) to the Shredding Centres. In these facilities, huge hammer mills shred the hulks into little pieces.

During shredding, materials with lower density and size (foams, textiles, rubber, etc.) are sucked away from the mill and separated, becoming “light shredder waste”. Next, an electromagnet extracts the “ferrous metals”. The remaining materials form a mix called “heavy fraction”, constituted by non-ferrous metals (copper, aluminium, magnesium, etc.) and bigger fragments made of plastic, rubber, wood, etc. This mix is later submitted to several sorting/separation processes (i.e. screening, flotation, induced current, densimetric tables, optical media) that separate the “non-ferrous metals” from the remaining materials, which are then called “heavy shredder waste”.

The fractions of ferrous and non-ferrous metals are sent away to be recycled by the steel industry. Light and heavy shredder waste are currently sent to be co-processed in cement kilns (coincineration) or sent to landfills.