MG Rover has announced that it has signed a 10-year agreement to meet its long-term compliance with the new UK End of Life Vehicle (ELV) ‘producer responsibility’ Regulations.

In partnership with Cartakeback.com, MG Rover will provide owners with access to a national network of facilities that will ensure environmentally acceptable treatment of end-of life vehicles, optimising recycling of the cars and reducing waste.

As an incentive, all owners of any vehicle from MG Rover will qualify for free take-back through the network from January 1 2007.

Rob Oldaker, MG Rover product development director, says: “We make continued efforts in product development to restrict hazardous substances to within legal limits and to implement an ethic of ‘design for recycling’.

“We now look forward to working with Cartakeback to ensure the actual re-use/recovery performance of our vehicles moves from the current levels of around 77% to the new legislated targets of 85% in 2006 and 95% in 2015.”

Growth of the network will develop across the whole of the UK during 2005, but the free take-back of all MG Rover Group’s ELVs registered new from July 1 2002 has already been implemented.

In keeping with the ‘producer responsibility’ rules, MG Rover ‘legacy’ brand cars manufactured before the year 2000, including: Austin, Morris, Triumph, Wolseley, Riley, and the original Mini, are also covered within this plan.

When the main free take-back regulation for all ELVs is invoked in 2007, MG Rover will have a car parc of approximately 2m with around 200,000 ELVs arising in the UK during that year.