Californians are deeply entrenched in the state’s car culture. With limited public transportation, California residents would be hard-pressed to survive with a vehicle. This leads some to hold on to their cars a bit longer than they should. While there’s nothing wrong with holding onto a safe and properly maintained car for a decade or more, it is a problem when it’s more of an environmental nightmare than a mode of transportation.
Is Your Junk Car Harming the Environment?
Whether your junk car is rotting away on your property or it’s still your main mode of transportation, it could be an environmental nightmare without you even realizing it. Many Californians who don’t have the money to purchase a more earth-friendly vehicle still care much about the environment and how their vehicles can add to air pollution and other means of harming the planet. Let’s take a look at how a junk car could be harming the environment.
Failure To Pass California’s Automobile Emissions Inspection
California is known to have the country’s strictest emissions standards. While this helps to keep the state as pollution-free as possible, it can cause some financial hardships for the owners of older vehicles. Many who own older cars realize that theirs is polluting the environment when it fails California’s Smog Test inspection. This emissions inspection is required every two years, and vehicles that fail its tough criterion won’t be able to have their registration renewed.
If you own a car that cannot pass this required inspection, you may want to consider selling it instead of pouring money into a vehicle that may be harming the environment. Junk cars are notorious for doing so. The answer is to sell it to a specialized junk car dealership.
Leaking Toxins Into the Environment
One of the issues with junk cars is that they always seem to require repairs. As soon as one thing is fixed, another issue quickly takes its place. Older vehicles could sprout leaks constantly from dried or brittle hoses and gaskets. While some of the leaks can be prevented by replacing an inexpensive, worn-out hose, others are far too costly to justify.
Junkers that are leaking motor oil and other harmful fluids onto California’s roads and highways will eventually find their way into the groundwater. Even worse, those that are rotting away on residential property could be leaking dangerous gasoline, oil, and transmission or brake fluids directly onto the ground. Not only are these fluids toxic to the environment, they could potentially harm children and pets.
What To Do With Your Vehicle That’s Harming the Environment
Owners of cars that are hazardous and are harming the environment have two choices. First, they can dump cash into them to fix their hazardous issues. Secondly, and probably the right choice, is to dispose of them in an environmentally friendly manner. But how exactly do you dispose of a sustainable junk car?
Sell It to a Specialized Dealer
The most profitable and foolproof way to dispose of a junk car is to sell it to a specialized dealer. These businesses specialize in buying any vehicle regardless of needed repairs, excessive mileage, or decades of use. The easiest way to unload an environmental disaster on wheels is to sell your junk car in Fresno. They’ll come to you, tow it away, and leave you with a handsome payment of cash or a deposit into your favorite cash app. You can then use the money to purchase a more earth-friendly mode of transportation.
Sell It to a Junkyard
Haul your junk car to a junkyard, and they’ll offer you the market price for its weight in scrap metal. This environmentally friendly way of junk car disposal ensures that whatever can be stripped from it and recycled or reused won’t end up in an already overcrowded and harmful landfill. Owners won’t get top dollar, but they will walk away knowing that they’ve done something to help protect the planet.
The Bottom Line: Do the Right Thing
Once you’re sure your car is harming the environment, earth-friendly owners of them will want to do what’s best. Sometimes, dumping good money after bad isn’t the best financial choice. Car ownership in a state with strict emissions standards can be difficult for the owners of junk cars. The right choice is to sell them to a specialized junk car dealer.
