DISCARDED cars fill a dumping ground in Shiroishi City in Miyagi prefecture, Japan.

About five million cars in the country are scrapped every year and the figure is expected to pass the seven-million mark next century, prompting a search by car manufacturers for ways to recycle vehicles.

Cars that have come to the end of their useful life are taken from used-car dealers and other collection centres to firms that specialise In dismantling them.

After removing the engines and other reusable parts, the dismantler strips off other items for their materials. What remains of the car is then sold as scrap to a company that specialises in shredding them.

The shredding firm tears the bodies into pieces with a giant shredder and divides the fragments into steel and non-ferrous metals for sale to materials manufacturers.