According to the 1990 German Regulations for reducing production of wastes, recycling and reuse of car shredder residue , German manufacturers or their agents must take back a used vehicle from the last owner free of charge and reuse or recycle parts safely, and remove and recycle fluids. As of 1992, the EC, led by the French, was to have drafted similar legislation based on the German model. The key issue is one of design. This figure is most assuredly, much higher today. A database of the reuse industry set up by Professor Robert Lund of Boston University includes remanufacturers from several industries, most notably the auto parts industry.
Further statistics are obtainable from that database.
Unheralded, the auto parts industry has been reusing and remanufacturing with autmotive ferrous metals for many years, antedating the current recycling wave.