Vehicle recycling programme in Azerbaijan: what will owners get in return?

A new vehicle recycling programme is soon to be launched in Azerbaijan, by which the authorities hope to motivate people to buy new cars, but, the only problem is that Azerbaijan does not produce any.

• Gomis Mta, Georgia’s Klondike – a world above the clouds and builders above the law
• Taxi fare scandal in Azerbaijan – are ‘tomatoes’ to blame?
• “He traded pot for a car”: Abkhaz villagers beat new local head, accuse him of drug trafficking

Official representative of the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources Rasim Sattarzade bemoans the fact that the country is full of old cars.

“80% of all cars in the country were produced more than 10 years ago, and 20% of cars have been in use for more than 30 years”, said Sattarzade.

He added that citizens must buy new cars, and the state must take care of the disposal of old ones, which is why a vehicle recycling programme has been developed and will soon be launched.

It is not yet clear how are the Azerbaijani authorities planning to encourage owners to dispose of old cars and buy new ones.

The country itself does not produce automobiles. There are several factories for assembling cars of foreign (mainly Chinese) manufacturers, but the volumes of production are hardly sufficient.

So, how do the other countries deal with the recycling of vehicles?

150 euros for the car’s “spare parts”

According to a scrappage scheme of Germany, old cars’ collection points must be located no more than 50 kilometers from home where the car owner resides.

A car owner can submit their vehicle to the scrapping scheme at any of the collection points, or at any car dealership of the relevant manufacturer.

The state itself does not play any role in this process, as everything is sorted out by the car manufacturers, regardless of the brand of the recycled vehicle.

If spare parts of a car can be sold, its owner can expect a profit of approximately 100-150 euros.

Nevertheless, there is no use in comparing the standards of living in Germany and Azerbaijan, so let us have a look at how a similar process is managed in one of the countries of the former USSR.

Almost 10 years ago, a programme for the disposal of old cars was first introduced in Russia, and the state is very much involved in it.

A large part of the country’s federal budget is allocated annually for the implementation of this programme.

For example, in 2020, more than 120,000 Russian cars were sold, and the budget of the scrappage program was estimated at about 45 billion rubles [the equivalent of about $600 million].

For each recycled car, its owner receives 50,000 rubles from the state [about $670]. For a truck, the amount of compensation reaches 350 thousand rubles [about $ 4.7 thousand].

Thus, Russia encourages its citizens to buy cars of domestic brands.

We are yet to see how the car scrapping program will be implemented in Azerbaijan.