I was reading an article on how cars are recycled when they reach their end of the road. I thought it was pretty interesting. According to this article, about 95% of a car can be recycled nowadays.

The article explained the process, and I even looked up some video. The process mentions that all fluids are drained, any parts that can be re-used are removed to be sold later, tires can become playgrounds, etc. But there was no mention on what happens to the seats. I wonder if the seats of a car are recyclable as well? Im sure some of them are removed and sold, but I dont know if that is an item that resales often. Does anyone here know what happens to seats of a car once they are removed? To what point can they be recycled or how are they disposed off?

i was just wondering :-)

Seats and interior parts are commonly bought and sold, they are reused into existing good cars that may have an upholstery problem, etc.

I'm sure places like LKQ & various pick-a-part places buy a good bit of it.

There is a company called pull a part here in Atlanta area.
Nice place actually and is probably fifty akers
They have crush run gravel in this total area The auto are sit up on rims for customers to have access to the total car ,trucks etc.
They are in position by manufacture.
Auto do not last long as hoards of customers pick them clean in days and then they crush and re stock.
Web site list the autos by year and engine.
I have visited many times to keep my raddle traps running.
Prices are very reasonable also.

I bought a “Gently rolled” Porsche as a parts car a few years ago. I took out parts I wanted and then sold the rest of the usable parts on a Porsche website. Most of the sales were f2f and I ended up making more than I paid for it plus kept the good parts for myself.
When the car was stripped out I took it to an auto shredder and sold it for something like $0.50/pound...

In some parts of the city, they are used as front-porch furniture.

I used to haul scrap metals into a very large scrap metal recycler. Mostly city metals, washers, dryers, hot water heaters, school bus bodys. The cars would have the tires removed, gas tank pulled out and slung through the air by the huge excavator with 4 jaw grabber thingy, coil springs got torn out then, close the jaws and punch the bottom of the car till it is flat. They would set 3 flat cars across my tin loads to weigh them down. Off to the shredder which eatd the cars into small shreds. Metals are seperated by magnets on a convayor. The seats, dash and console and carpets become what was called fluff. A huge mountain of fluff. I believe they were adding it to road materials. Each rig can go 107,000 pounds GVW.

WOW guys! Up until I read the article I mentioned in my initial post, I never thought much of what happens to our cars when it is the end of their useful life. The "fluff" David Lee mentioned above, I would have never thought it came from parts of recycled cars. I am so fascinated by this right now. :-)

Most of the cars that end up going to the car crusher are old delapitated junk cars. The seats are in just as poor condition and they'll crush them in the car, along with the carpet etc. The crushed car ends up going to a shredder that shreds the car and the steel is taken out with a big magnet on a crane and there's some other sort of system where the plastics and non metal items fall out and other metals are sorted etc.

https://www.bing.com/videos/se...5D6CB9E57B&FORM=VIRE

We have an auto recycler here that two times a year charges something like $50 to take anything you can carry out. I have seen people take car hoods and use them as sleds and drag out a pile of parts. It's a win for the business and customers.

Some of the shredders I’ve hauled cars to are quite sophisticated. They run the cars through a big hammer mill where everything is reduced down to small pieces. The scrap goes through a labyrinth of conveyor belts where computers look at the scrap somehow. Little air puffers will blow the scrap from one belt to another. They will separate the different metals, plastics, glass, etc. What’s leftover goes to the fluff pile. It’s very interesting to watch.

The fluff goes thru another machine that gets the copper out of it. Lots if copper gets recycled this way.