Stellantis has opened its first car recycling centre in South America

Stellantis has launched its first Circular AutoPeças car recycling centre in Brazil. The facility is located in the city of Osasco, São Paulo state. It is the first of its kind in South America and should extend the life of car parts and reduce waste.

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So far, Stellantis has only had one such centre - in Turin, Italy. The Brazilian facility is part of Stellantis' global programme to create a circular economy: parts and materials are not thrown away, but repaired, reused or recycled.

Investment in the project totalled R$13 million (about $2.3 million) and the facility will create approximately 150 jobs. The capacity of the centre is up to 8,000 cars a year: both cars after serious accidents and old ones that have reached the end of their useful life will be recycled here.

The process starts with complete deactivation - all fluids, including oil, fuel and antifreeze, are drained from the car. Next, specialists remove and check the parts that can be reused. Each item is cleaned with eco-friendly products and given an identification label from Brazilian Detran, confirming its origin and legality. Up to 49 such components can be recovered from a single vehicle.

What isn't suitable for reuse doesn't go to waste either: metal - steel, aluminium, copper and other materials - is sent to partner companies for recycling. Stellantis claims to recycle 100 per cent of dismantled vehicles.

The remanufactured parts will be sold in two ways: directly at the centre in Osasco and online through the Circular AutoPeças shop on the Mercado Livre platform. Later, a separate e-commerce platform Stellantis will appear.

Why is this important for Brazil? A country with a car fleet of 48 million cars annually "scraps" about 2 million cars, but only 1.5% of them are recycled according to the rules. Experts estimate the potential of the car recycling market at R$2bn ($360m) a year.

The centre in Osasco has become part of the wider Stellantis ecosystem in the region. In 2024, the company opened a vehicle recovery centre in Betina, Minas Gerais, and is also developing original parts reuse programmes. All of this fits into the "4R" strategy: Remanufacture, Repair, Reuse, Recycle.

Source: Mopar Insiders