Millions of Abandoned Vehicles in Chinese Junkyard

In the capital of Jiangsu province, Nanjing, haunting images reveal a vast car graveyard where millions of vehicles are left to rust. This sprawling junkyard is filled with an array of colorful cars, trucks, lorries, and motorbikes, many of which are coated in thick layers of amber rust, suggesting they will remain abandoned indefinitely. The phenomenon is largely attributed to the rapid rise in private car ownership in China, which has created a significant market for discarded car parts and contributed to the increasing number of vehicles left to decay. The decline of car-sharing companies has also played a role in this issue. Initially popular, these companies benefitted from government incentives, but when subsidies were cut in 2019, many were forced to shut down and abandon their fleets of electric vehicles. Additionally, the fast-paced production of new car models has rendered older vehicles obsolete, leading to their abandonment. In 2016 alone, nearly 1.9 million vehicles were scrapped in China, highlighting the scale of the problem. As of 2019, there were approximately 260 million vehicles on the road in China, with an estimated 9.1 million considered obsolete based on international scrap ratios. The Ministry of Commerce reported a 16 percent increase in vehicle recycling in 2019, with 202,000 junk vehicles processed, including 171,000 cars and 31,000 motorcycles. In 2020, the number of scrapped vehicles surged to an alarming 1.95 million, further emphasizing the growing crisis of vehicle abandonment. Car graveyards have proliferated across China, with one of the largest located in Hangzhou, serving as a stark reminder of the environmental and economic challenges posed by the country's rapid automotive growth.