Wreck & roll
At an auto recycling yard in Rocherlea, old-school service meets state-of-the art ingenuity to deliver first-in-class environmental outcomes for scrap cars.
In an otherwise unassuming industrial pocket of Launceston, massive change is being implemented through gear boxes, axles and engines. Across four warehouses, 800-plus cars and 2.8 hectares of land, Tasmanian Auto Recyclers (TAR) is redefining waste and rewriting the narrative around recycled car parts.
"Some people would say, ‘Slow down’, but I say, ‘No, no slowing down.’ We want to keep doing it better and better,” says managing director Chris Cordiner, a former auctioneer.
The Rocherlea facility welcomes 20-odd written-off cars per week. In covered sheds, 1150 sparkling combustion engines are stacked four shelves high, awaiting their chance to roar back to life – on average, five each day. Other outbuildings house rows of doors, accessories and bright yellow shock absorbers.
Each day, six or seven cars enter the hangar and go through ‘inventory’, where they’re meticulously examined by two dedicated team members, including Scotty Smith, who has been with the business since 2008. The pair catalogues and photographs parts for a digital database that services the in-house sales team. Here, the duo decides – based on demand, fed back from the sales team – if a car needs to be taken apart then, or placed in the yard for deconstruction at a later date.
“We’re very thorough,” Scotty says. “It’s all at our fingertips.”
If that car – one day, a LandCruiser 70s series and a Triton GLX; another a Volkswagen Polo or Hyundai i30 – shows up as in short supply, it’s transferred to ‘depollute’, where the car is cleaned and processed to remove oils, A/C gases and fuels. The TAR team of 22 employees rarely buy petrol or diesel, instead filtering that which is collected to power on-site machines and fuel their own cars. Oil is sent to a local hothouse (the scented, vibrant results of which are delivered back on occasion as bunches of red roses) and coolant is sent to Burnie for reuse.
Parts are then removed, photographed and logged, joining 115,000 other parts on hand at any time. Like in an IKEA warehouse (if it was peppered with oiled footprints and rogue bolts), every item has a designated barcoded shelf location.
When a customer calls in search of a spare part, the team can search the database, check each part’s comprehensive notes, confirm its availability, pick it from the shelves and prepare it for dispatch within 30 minutes.
Every item is photographed and logged on eBay by enthusiastic 20-year-old warehouser Trent McDonald, who is also responsible for picking up any inconsistencies or scratches that might have slipped through during handling.
Parcels are dispatched to destinations as far-flung as Cowra and Port Macquarie in New South Wales and Yarrawonga in the Northern Territory. TAR has sent the odd piece to New Zealand, but given freight costs, requests from Azerbaijan and South Africa are unserviceable for now.
With 300-plus calls a day and more requests still via social media, website widgets and direct message, alongside 80 to 90 orders per day, personable customer service and efficiency are paramount to the team. “
It’s about doing it old-school, but doing it really, really, really well,” says Chris of the person-centric approach. “We don’t ever want to go back to that wrecking yard mentality of the old bloke that says, ‘Oh, I’ll check and call you back later.’ We know what’s there, and we can sell it.”
Loose metal is separated into recycling bins – alloy here, steel there – and usable tyres are stacked out front. Only once all possible parts are repurposed does a car’s carcass travel, via forklift, over a shared boundary to Recycal’s 15-acre Rocherlea scrap-metal processing facility. In the unseasonably warm autumn sun, Chris shields his eyes as he points to a green 4.5-cubicmetre wheelie bin.
“That’s the only waste that leaves here, because everything else gets used one way or another,” he says. “If we can get a car here and pull a perfectly good engine out and reuse it, it’s just a truly fantastic environmental outcome.”
Parts are cleaned as they’re prepared, eliminating unnecessary future handling, and engines are strapped onto custom timber palettes handmade by Self Help Workplace, a social enterprise disability employer in Youngtown. Accessories are packed in recycled boxes and protected with shredded paperwork. A mirror might depart in a Lego box donated by Chris’ kids or an old beer box emptied after Friday knock-off.
“It’s a bit hard on the branding but I’ll wear that, because I think that if they’re getting a box from us and it’s a Boag’s Draught box, well, that’s alright,” says Chris. “It’s very Tasmanian and it’s another box that we didn’t have to make.”
Purpose is felt on a personal level too, with TAR recently earning the APM Employment Services 2025 Outstanding Achievement Award for 24-yearold Nicholas Ungerhofer and 2025 Employer of the Year. Employees’ ages range from 20 to 69, with retention consistently solid for the industry and some employees proudly racking up decades of service. On site, there’s a keen and evident eagerness – from mechanics to packers – to build something better every day.
“When you see someone who’s never had a job and they come into a business like this and they start to be surrounded by people who come to work, work hard and take a lot of pride in what they do, it really becomes quite contagious,” Chris says. “I feel like if these [young] people get a start and get going, then they’re away. It’s something we take pride in. We want to see people develop.”
It’s all the more reason to not slow down, he says. “We’re taking something that’s deemed waste and we’re turning it into a really saleable product and, at the same time, delivering this tremendously positive environmental outcome from something that was essentially considered no good,” he says.
“You see a smashed car roll in and then you see all these beautiful, well-presented parts go out. It does make you feel good about what you’re doing.”
