There are still more than one million cars a year being scrapped in the UK without first having all pollutants removed. There is currently a loophole in the DVLA’s licensing system that allows unlicensed scrap merchants and car owners to deregister a car, remove metals and any valuable scrap materials and then dump the remaining pollutants such as oil, brake fluid and airbag gas containers as untreated waste.

The DVLA has said that it is working hard to find a solution whilst Paul Everitt, the chief executive of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) stated that “We are very disappointed that these two Government agencies [the DVLA and Environment Agency] have failed to address this loophole.”

Government figures revealed that only 900,000 certificates of destruction were issued in 2006 despite more than 2,000,000 cars being taken of the road. In 2003, The End of Life Vehicle Regulations came into force which requires all cars to be stripped of pollutants and recycled at licensed scrap yards.