Ford Recycles 1.2 Billion Recycled Plastic Bottles Per year for Vehicle Parts

Ford Motor is playing a major role in promoting environmentally friendly auto parts, and one way they’re doing that is by using recycled plastic bottles for underbody shields on all cars and SUVs, and wheel liners on F-Series trucks – up to 250 bottles per vehicle. Recycled bottles are used to manufacture parts that can help improve vehicle aerodynamics and reduce cabin noise. In the past decade, aerodynamics has driven the need for underbody shields, and the use of plastics in vehicle parts is used globally, and has grown exponentially – Ford uses about 1.2 billion recycled plastic bottles per year – about 250 bottles per vehicle on average.

When plastic bottles are thrown into a recycling bin, they are collected with thousands of others, and shredded into small pieces. That’s typically sold to suppliers who turn it into a fiber, by melting the bottle and extruding it. Those fibers are mixed together with other various types of fiber in a textile process and used to make a sheet of material – which is formed into the automotive parts. Due to its light weight, recycled plastic is ideal for the manufacture of underbody shields, engine under shield and front and rear wheel arch liners that can help improve vehicle aerodynamics. These shields also help create a significantly quieter environment on the all-new 2020 Ford Escape.

Environmentally, using recycled plastics on vehicle parts helps reduce the amount of plastic that can end up in dangerous situations, such as the Pacific gyre, for example – a floating mass of plastic bigger than the size of Mexico in the Pacific Ocean.