More and more cars are being driven on our roads every year and that means more vehicles are being scrapped than ever before.

The problem of abandoned vehicles is growing with Oxfordshire no exception and the cost to the environment of dealing with them is also spiralling.

When a car finally reaches the end of the road, 90 per cent of it is still probably useful in some form.

Finding out how to make sure as much of every vehicle is re-used is a task now being tackled by a new think tank led by academics from Oxford Brookes University. They have helped set up the Drivenet organisation, which also involves scientists, Government representatives and manufacturing industry groups.

It will examine how vehicles can be re-used and dismantled efficiently as well as designed in a greener way in the first place.

Co-ordinator Dr Pat Winfield of Oxford Brookes University said: "We want to look at vehicle design, materials and components, how they can be assembled and dis-assembled cost effectively and how they can be re-used.

"It is a question of looking at the whole picture and getting people to talk to each other in a coherent way."

The group will have its first meeting in October and its establishment is timely with the End of Life Vehicle Directive coming into force in 2007. This new legislation will insist on wider user of recyclable and reusable materials by manufacturers which will also be responsible for taking back vehicles when they reach the end of their useful life.

Drivenet has already approached vehicle manufacturers including BMW and received a positive response.

Dr Winfield added: "We want to get people talking together and tackle problems. One of the subjects we are looking at is how vehicles can be designed to be recycled."

Most of the metal from scrapped cars can be recycled easily but plastics present a problem for re-use and recycling.

The aim of Drivenet is to come up with solutions to these hurdles and deliver them to manufacturers to provide more environmentally friendly motoring in the future.