Good points ClodMaxx. Trading in total heaps to get a cheap(er) new car is great, that the whole idea of the scheme, but its morons who''ll trade in their perfectly fine and excellent condition pickups (see above) in order to save a few grand on a useless city car who should be shot. If you buy a 4x4 to drive around town in (Chelsea tractor, or so the expression goes- soccer moms in the US?) then thats daft to start with, its just the mentallity that bigger is better/ safer; if everyone living in a city or town drove smaller cars, then they'd still all be equally safe relatively speaking. But those ejjits with more $ than sense will then go along with the clunkers scheme and get rid of a well looked after vehicel becuase they think they're doing something posistive for the enviroment- do as the government says cos they must be right after all...
The other point about being 85% recyclable is true to an extent, but thats only really newer cars less than about 10 years old or so, but if your old daily run about runs fine and is cheap to maintain, why scrap it? Brussels & the EU parliament have far too much say in what we can and cant do, and the targets that they set are often nearly impossible to meet, especially reducing emmissions by like 70% in a few decades time- that kind of change would need 99% of older being scrapped and swapped for bloody Geewizzes! God help us... anyone got a .50 cal I can borrow, got to scare a few Sprouts....