By Town Crier Staff Report

The Bay Area Air Quality Management District’s Vehicle Buy Back Program scrapped its 10,000th vehicle earlier this summer.

Since the program began in 1996, scrapping of these vehicles has removed 1,500 tons of air pollutants, according to the district.

The Vehicle Buy Back program purchases and scraps older vehicles that lack modern emission control systems and produce more air pollution than newer cars.

The program is completely voluntary and pays participating owners of eligible vehicles $500 per vehicle.

For each vehicle scrapped, the district estimates that 200 to 440 pounds of air pollutants are removed from the air, including reactive organic gasses and oxides that combine in heat and sunshine to form ground level ozone - the main ingredient in smog.

Older vehicles are targeted in this program because even well-maintained they have significantly higher emissions than most newer models.

To find out if you have a vehicle that qualifies, call the Air District’s contractor, Pick-N-Pull Dismantlers, at 1-(800) 727-2708.