Since the beginning of Daniel Passerini's administration, the Municipality of Córdoba has recorded the final disposal of 4,072 vehicles considered irrecoverable. The latest operation was carried out at Depot No. 7, on Avenida Costanera Sur, where 330 units were compacted in the most recent intervention. Municipal sources explained that other sites have been recovered or reassigned, leaving No. 7 as the main location for this task.
The prolonged retention of cars in depots caused legal and economic damages for the municipality and offenders. The new approach seeks to move from a "car cemetery" to a system with proper custody and greater operational efficiency. According to the Secretary of Government, the cleanup mainly covered the central area, although the problem persists in neighborhoods with higher abandonment rates.
The compaction process is carried out every two months with Hierros Arce SA, which processes four cars per hour in workdays of up to ten hours. The municipality stated that the task doesn't involve fiscal cost, since the executing company pays a fee for obtaining the processed metal. At $20 per kilogram ($9.07 per pound) or $20,000 per ton ($9,072 per ton), the Municipality reported revenues of more than $72 million since the beginning of the administration.
Córdoba registró la disposición final de 4.072 vehículos considerados irrecuperables
Abandonment in neighborhoods and accumulation in workshops: the next objective
The official indicated that the challenge is to act with equal speed in critical neighborhoods and workshops that accumulate vehicles for months. Villa El Libertador, Comercial, Yofré, and Argüello Norte are listed as areas with the highest amount of vehicle scrap and require targeted actions. After neighborhood complaints or internal surveys, a report is filed, and if there is no response within 72 hours, the car may be removed.
For cases with ongoing judicial proceedings, warrants, or measures that prevent final disposal, these are excluded from compaction until the issues are solved. The Municipality is preparing working groups with local stakeholders to design measures that recover public spaces and reduce risks. The objective is to combine inspection, notification to registries, and operational actions to reduce accumulation on the street and in workshops.
In the Legislature, Radical Sebastián Peralta submitted a project so that vehicles seized by the courts are allocated for school and teacher transportation in rural areas lacking vehicles. The proposal aims to utilize cars and pick-ups seized for crimes to meet transportation needs in communities with insufficient roads and fleets. Currently, Law 10860 allows only the reassignment of machinery and large vehicles, and the new project seeks to include seized cars and pick-ups.
The municipality also keeps a public search tool where the list of available vehicles and the institutions that received units can be consulted. With the compaction and scrap sale circuit, the Municipality aims to create a cycle of public space recovery, contribute to environmental care, and generate revenue for local administration. The plan now focuses on extending operations to workshops and neighborhoods to prevent scrap from accumulating again and continuing to generate costs and risks.
