The Bay Area Air Quality Management District is suspending its Vehicle Buy Back Program as of December 31.
Photo by Joel Williams
Published: January, 2011
The Bay Area Air Quality Management District is suspending its Vehicle Buy Back Program as of December 31. However, Bay Area residents can continue to retire their eligible older vehicles through the newly expanded State Consumer Assistance Program, which will cover many of the same vehicles as the Air District program.
These voluntary programs offer $1,000 to owners of older, higher-emitting cars and light trucks to scrap their vehicles. Older vehicles lack modern emission control technology and pollute significantly more than newer models. Since 1996, the Air District’s Vehicle Buy Back program has retired over 50,000 cars, vans, pickup trucks, and SUVs. For each pre-1990 vehicle removed from Bay Area roads, an estimated 75 pounds of air pollution is prevented from being emitted into the air annually.
“Pollution from automobiles is responsible for over 50 percent of the air pollution in the Bay Area,” said Jack Broadbent, executive officer of the Air District. “Retirement of older polluting vehicles is a cost effective way to get big polluters off the road. It’s an investment in cleaner air that pays immediate dividends.”
The Air District continues to operate its Smoking Vehicle Assistance Program to improve air quality and respiratory health by reducing the number of smoking vehicles on the road. To find out about smoking vehicle health impacts, connect to retirement assistance programs, or enlist to become a clean air advocate, please visit www.smokingvehiclehelp.org.
Individuals interested in retiring their vehicle after December 31, can visit www.smogcheck.ca.gov or call 1-800-952-5210 for details on the State CAP program.
