Time to retire your ride?
By Fiona Wagner • Bankrate.com

Environment, not economy
"It's a big distinction between what our program is designed to do and what it's successfully achieving, versus Cash for Clunkers and other international programs that are very much stimulus programs designed to get people into new cars with a secondary, if any, focus on retiring older vehicles," says Dharsee. "We've been able to come up with a diversity of incentives that meets everyone's lifestyle needs, and at the end of the day, let them feel good about the choice they've made for the environment."

There's also a difference between what happens to vehicles once they've been retired. Under the U.S. program, vehicles have their engines disabled and must be crushed within six months (because of disturbing reports of surplus vehicles being sold at auction, re-registered and put back on the road). Vehicles consigned to Retire Your Ride undergo a multi-step process that maximizes the amount of materials that are reclaimed, reused and recycled.

First, an average of 40 litres of fluid -- including oil, anti-freeze, washer fluid, refrigerants, fuel and mercury switches -- are drained and removed from each vehicle and stored for reuse or recycling. Then, the vehicle is dismantled and parts are removed for resale, reconditioning, recycling or safe disposal. What's left of the vehicle (only about 25 percent is unusable) is crushed and shredded and any valuable materials are separated and reused to make new cars and other consumer products.

"If you look around the world at all the scrappage programs, they almost universally don't talk about what happens to the car. Retire Your Ride is much more active on ensuring the vehicle is retired responsibility," says Steve Fletcher, managing director, Automotive Recyclers of Canada. "It's not solving an emissions problem by creating a waste problem."

While he admits that $300 isn't much of a cash rebate compared to the thousands offered by the U.S. government, he notes that many Canadian consumers in the market for a newer, more efficient car have already taken advantage of rebates offered by car manufacturers ponying up the difference.

"Almost half the vehicles we see coming through Retire Your Ride have got an auto incentive attached to it, so it's not $300, it's probably more like $2,000," says Fletcher. "But it's not your money and it's not my money, it's the manufacturers' money -- and they're the guys who benefit."

Besides, he says, "with all these programs falling by the wayside, Canada is the one left with a sustainable program. I think we did something right here."

Fiscal benefits aside, the program seems to working. To date, almost 16,000 clunkers have been retired and 849 tonnes of smog-producing pollutants have been reduced.

"The response to the program has been getting better and better," says Dharsee. "When we launched in February, we had a short list of incentives that were available. Now, people have more and more choice and reasons to look at Retire Your Ride, find the solution that's right for them and give up their old car."

Fiona Wagner is a freelance writer in Hastings County, Ontario