When  you think about celebrating Earth Day, Car Donation Wizard hopes you’re thinking of ways that you can reduce your environmental impact on the planet. For instance, taking shorter showers, learning more about what’s recyclable, cleaning up your neighborhood beach, planting more flowers and trees, biking to work part of the week. However you choose to give back, know that future generations will reap the benefits of your contribution.

When you donate a car to one of our amazing charities like Habitat for Humanity, the American Cancer Society, Car Talk or any of our other great partners, your vehicle goes to one of two places: to an auction facility or a recycling facility. Vehicles that get recycled are extremely valuable to maintaining a healthy ecosystem.

Did you know that millions of tons of iron and steel enters the recycling stream because of how easy it is to separate from other materials (steel has incredible magnetic properties)? When you decide to donate that old junk car, you’re not only doing something great for charity, but you’re helping to take a car (or other vehicle) that may be producing harmful emissions off the road and into the steel recycling process. Steel never loses its strength, no matter how many times it’s been recycled, which makes it a valuable commodity and insures that when you buy future steel products, you’re always buying recycled steel. Making new steel requires a lot of energy, but the fact that we’re able to recycle steel from donated vehicles helps contribute to the statistic that the amount of energy needed to produce a ton of steel has been reduced by 34% since 1972.

So the next time you’re considering whether that old vehicle taking up space in your driveway is donation worthy, consider the value of steel recycling and know that Car Donation Wizard can help you stay green and give back at the same time. Now that’s an Earth Day promise we can all stand behind.

Check out our video on how donated cars get recycled!

Happy Earth Day!