The Auto Scrap Metal Industry Starts Strong in 2012.
14 February 2012
Read by 2932 persons
The scrap metal business may not have a great reputation. But it's a very lucrative industry right now. A quick trip to the Salmia district reveals its vitality.
Neither the gusts of wind whipping our ears, nor the greasy smell of metal saturating the air, nor even the distance from the city center changes anything: the "cemetery" still attracts thousands of visitors at the start of 2012, and its activity continues to grow without ever slowing down. But we don't bury the dead here; instead, we bring cars back to life. Car parts and components, to be more precise. The "cemetery" in question is the large scrap yard in the Salmia district. It's given this name due to its proximity to the gigantic eponymous city, built in the 1980s and now one of the most populous satellite towns of Greater Casablanca.
It's very far out, reached via the city's eastern exit, on the old Tit Mellil road. But regulars have long since adapted to the constraints of such a journey. Almost everything is sold there: car engines, all brands of course, but also carburetors, fuel pumps, crankshafts, camshafts, axle heads, valve sets, and dynamos, not to mention equipment, dashboards, rims, turn signals, tires, radiators, or seats. It immediately becomes clear that the place is more of a chaotic jumble than a spare parts supermarket. But what a providential "museum" for a motorist whose old Renault 19 needs a piston or whose 70s Beetle needs a manual window winder...
The economic weight of this business and its cross-sectoral impact on other industries are significant. Indeed, it should be noted that the national spare parts market generates nearly 2 billion dirhams annually. Counterfeiters manage to skim off more than 40% of this market. That's far from insignificant... It should also be specified that dealerships alone cannot ensure sufficient stock availability and diversity of parts.
Even if they could, the catalog price would always be the deciding factor for the broken-down customer. "People prefer to come and buy here, often at a lower cost, rather than paying a high price at dealerships after waiting several days, or even weeks," comments Yahia, a young scrap metal dealer who has been in the Salmia district for a year, after his father's death. The young scrap metal dealer is not a little proud to show off his shop, which contains at least half a million dirhams worth of parts of all kinds! Some are truly remarkable pieces, as one wonders who could still need an alternator for a 1960s Citroën DS 19... "A good scrap metal dealer can make a very comfortable living. The advice and after-sales service, contrary to what rumors suggest, are very real here," insists Haj Abdelkibir. No doubt. However, the unsavory reputation of some scrap yard professionals persists. Some of them do not hesitate to remove perfectly healthy parts and replace them with old ones. Or, worse, with faulty ones! As 90% of motorists don't know the first thing about the wiring under their car hood, they don't notice, and thus return for repairs when the bad part creates problems. But where do all these carcasses, often twisted and sometimes barely scratched, come from? Scrap dealers generally source their parts in two ways: by buying up accident-damaged vehicles (and there are many), and by importing spare parts from large European junkyards, particularly in France, Italy, and Spain. Car bodies are systematically stripped of their parts and then cut up to be resold by the kilo to industrial sectors. Recycling that ultimately transforms sheet metal into "golden nuggets."
There's life after scrap metal...
Whether in the Salmia district, Sidi Moumen, or elsewhere, the recovery and recycling of scrap metal is far from meeting industrial standards as observed, through benchmarking, in other countries. Because, indeed, what happens to old end-of-life vehicles there? In France, for example, wrecks are no longer abandoned in the countryside or on wasteland. Cars are disassembled, stripped, depolluted, and recycled. A European directive on end-of-life vehicles stipulates that 85% of the weight of a car at the end of its life must be "recovered". In 2015, this percentage will even be raised to 95%.
Hassan El Arch.
Lematin.ma
Published February 13, 2012.
Posted online February 14, 2012.
Neither the gusts of wind whipping our ears, nor the greasy smell of metal saturating the air, nor even the distance from the city center changes anything: the "cemetery" still attracts thousands of visitors at the start of 2012, and its activity continues to grow without ever slowing down. But we don't bury the dead here; instead, we bring cars back to life. Car parts and components, to be more precise. The "cemetery" in question is the large scrap yard in the Salmia district. It's given this name due to its proximity to the gigantic eponymous city, built in the 1980s and now one of the most populous satellite towns of Greater Casablanca.
It's very far out, reached via the city's eastern exit, on the old Tit Mellil road. But regulars have long since adapted to the constraints of such a journey. Almost everything is sold there: car engines, all brands of course, but also carburetors, fuel pumps, crankshafts, camshafts, axle heads, valve sets, and dynamos, not to mention equipment, dashboards, rims, turn signals, tires, radiators, or seats. It immediately becomes clear that the place is more of a chaotic jumble than a spare parts supermarket. But what a providential "museum" for a motorist whose old Renault 19 needs a piston or whose 70s Beetle needs a manual window winder...
The economic weight of this business and its cross-sectoral impact on other industries are significant. Indeed, it should be noted that the national spare parts market generates nearly 2 billion dirhams annually. Counterfeiters manage to skim off more than 40% of this market. That's far from insignificant... It should also be specified that dealerships alone cannot ensure sufficient stock availability and diversity of parts.
Even if they could, the catalog price would always be the deciding factor for the broken-down customer. "People prefer to come and buy here, often at a lower cost, rather than paying a high price at dealerships after waiting several days, or even weeks," comments Yahia, a young scrap metal dealer who has been in the Salmia district for a year, after his father's death. The young scrap metal dealer is not a little proud to show off his shop, which contains at least half a million dirhams worth of parts of all kinds! Some are truly remarkable pieces, as one wonders who could still need an alternator for a 1960s Citroën DS 19... "A good scrap metal dealer can make a very comfortable living. The advice and after-sales service, contrary to what rumors suggest, are very real here," insists Haj Abdelkibir. No doubt. However, the unsavory reputation of some scrap yard professionals persists. Some of them do not hesitate to remove perfectly healthy parts and replace them with old ones. Or, worse, with faulty ones! As 90% of motorists don't know the first thing about the wiring under their car hood, they don't notice, and thus return for repairs when the bad part creates problems. But where do all these carcasses, often twisted and sometimes barely scratched, come from? Scrap dealers generally source their parts in two ways: by buying up accident-damaged vehicles (and there are many), and by importing spare parts from large European junkyards, particularly in France, Italy, and Spain. Car bodies are systematically stripped of their parts and then cut up to be resold by the kilo to industrial sectors. Recycling that ultimately transforms sheet metal into "golden nuggets."
There's life after scrap metal...
Whether in the Salmia district, Sidi Moumen, or elsewhere, the recovery and recycling of scrap metal is far from meeting industrial standards as observed, through benchmarking, in other countries. Because, indeed, what happens to old end-of-life vehicles there? In France, for example, wrecks are no longer abandoned in the countryside or on wasteland. Cars are disassembled, stripped, depolluted, and recycled. A European directive on end-of-life vehicles stipulates that 85% of the weight of a car at the end of its life must be "recovered". In 2015, this percentage will even be raised to 95%.
Hassan El Arch.
Lematin.ma
Published February 13, 2012.
Posted online February 14, 2012.
