The value of converters that have reached the end of their useful life ranges from £4 to around £300.

“Take the cat from an S-registered Mondeo as an example. Despite looking like a horrible and rusty old thing, it has a recycling value of £52 – but if you simply throw it into the waste bin, it will have a scrap metal value of just 70p,” Ives said.

“Not all converters are the same and values depend on the combinations of platinum group metals that the car manufacturer decides to specify, but cats taken from premium and luxury cars are generally worth the most.

”Someone running a top 20 fleet is probably rushed off their feet making sure vehicles are kept on the road and costs are kept down. But as everyone is now running on tighter margins, this is a particularly good time to set up another profit stream.

“Recycling is a multi-million pound industry and this is a multi-million pound waste. Instead of having people hanging around scrap bins and picking up cats to sell on to scrap merchants, fleets should be selling them directly to companies like ours.”