The Car Heaven program was entirely developed by Summerhill Impact and is delivered in partnership with other organizations.

Summerhill Impact manages all the relationships with our program partners, the development of all program materials, handles the public and government relations and the overall strategic planning for the program. Summerhill Impact also works with the Ontario Automotive Recyclers Association who manages the program nationally, runs the Car Heaven call centre, pick-up, dismantle and recycle the donated vehicles, issue and send out the Car Heaven incentives and process donations to partnering charities.

Yes, however the program is not offered in the Northwest Territories, Nunavut and the Yukon.

Since 2000, Summerhill Impact is a not-for-profit organizationas delivered many of Canada’s largest and most successful environmental public engagement campaigns and has encouraged significant behavioural change by making better environmental choices easy for consumers, allowing them to contribute to a sustained, positive, and measurable impact on the environment.

To find out more about the organization behind the Car Heaven program, visit www.summerhillimpact.ca.

Recycling cars can be a dirty business! Almost all vehicles at the end of their lives are recycled for their steel but…

Vehicles contain some hazardous components which must be recovered and diverted from the landfill. This includes oil, gasoline, refrigerants, mercury switches and tires. Car Heaven recyclers are committed to the environmentally-sound processing of vehicles and handle all the hazardous components responsibly. They ensure that when the cars are crushed, shredded and recycled for steel that they are as free of hazardous materials as possible, to ensure that our air, water and land is not polluted in the process.

In addition, Car Heaven recyclers reuse any components of the vehicles that are safe to reclaim and which do not contribute to the vehicle’s emissions. This avoids the need to re-manufacture new car parts.

None of the vehicles donated to the program are allowed back on the roads.

See the sections Why should I send my car to Car Heaven? and How does my old car get recycled? for more information.

All vehicles, no matter what the condition, are accepted into Car Heaven. Depending on the condition of your vehicle, you may be eligible for different incentives offered through the program. More information.

Currently, the average car donation to Car Heaven is 18 years old (model year 1990-1991). The typical vehicle donated to Car Heaven would otherwise have been on the road for three additional years.

New cars are considerably cleaner than old clunkers!

Car Heaven’s primary target is pre-1995 live vehicles. Live vehicles are those that are still on the road generating dirty emissions and contributing to our smog problem. As your vehicle gets older, its efficiencies wear down.

The average 14 year old vehicle produces 19 times more smog-forming emissions than a new vehicle. Furthermore, 53% of the vehicles donated to Car Heaven are replaced by “small” cars.

By turning over the Canadian vehicle fleet from old clunkers to new, cleaner cars, Car Heaven is reducing emissions to the environment. To date, Car Heaven has prevented the release of:

• 46,743 tonnes of carbon monoxide (CO)*
• 4,864 tonnes of smog-forming emissions (VOCs&NOx)*

* Based on the emission facators (g/km) for NOx and VOCs of a 1995 or older vehicle compared to a 2004 or newer model - Environment Canada.

(Source: CVMA)

Environment Canada projects that smog-causing emissions, specifically hydrocarbons (HC) and nitrogen Oxides (NOx) , from the total auto sector are currently in decline as newer, cleaner vehicles replace older, higher emitting vehicles in the fleet.
This is due to the fact that, since 1971, the federal government has adopted increasingly stringent standards for smog-forming emissions from motor vehicles. One more recent example is the new On-Road Vehicle and Engine Emission Regulations which came into effect under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, on January 1, 2004. For passenger vehicles, the regulations phase-in more stringent standards between 2004 and 2009. When these regulations are fully phased-in, all passenger vehicles will be subject to the same set of emissions standards. These regulations will result in a reduction of the allowable level of nitrogen oxide and volatile organic compound emissions from new vehicles by up to 95% and 84%, respectively, relative to previous requirements.

The chart below shows the allowable limits for hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, and nitrogen oxides averaged over the Canadian vehicle fleet and illustrates how these allowable amounts have been reduced over time.

The improvements made since Tier 0 and Tier 1 vehicles shows why Car Heaven targets pre-1995 live vehicles. New cars have better technology in them!