Scrapping My Car

For the first time in 15 years, I'm carless. My old rustbucket finally went to motor heaven this morning, as you can see in the photo above.

Okay, I'll back up here. What the hell was someone who claims to be "green" doing with a car?

I'm realistic enough to know that sometimes a car is the only option. My girlfriend lives 60 miles away, out in the wilds of Perthshire. By public transport, the journey from Edinburgh takes an eye-watering 3 hours. By car, it takes 80 minutes.

I wish it weren't so, but sometimes in Scotland the public transport options are complete pants. So, I own a car for my once a week jaunt to Perthshire and the rest of the time it sits gathering dust and rust.

Or rather, sat. This morning I scrapped it, as the costs of repairs started to become more than the car was worth. Quite honestly I'm glad to get rid of it, as I didn't much like it. But then, I'm not sure you're supposed to "like" functional cars that get you from A to B, not in the same way you're supposed to "like" a Ferrari or a Bugatti.

And yes, I can appreciate how beautiful a Ferrari looks. It's not something that endears me to some of my fellow environmentalists, but I've said this before: it's not the car I don't like, it's the internal combustion engine.

This is actually the second car I've scrapped. The first one, I had a hell of a time trying to find someone to take it off my hands, working my way through the Yellow Pages. Some wouldn't touch it, some said it wasn't worth their while picking it up, some wanted me to pay them to collect it.

This time, I decided to cut out the hassle. I used this website, and two hours later I had a scrap dealer from Fife calling me and arranging a time to collect the car. No fuss, no stress, and one less polluting car on the road...

...at least for a few weeks, until I buy a replacement.