Under the three year contract, which starts this week, vehicles will be collected by Silverlake and processed at their concrete site at Shedfield, near Bishop's Waltham.
Silverlake has expanded this from four to nine acres and is building a £2 million million facility which will triple its current de-pollution capacity when it opens in October.
The company said that vehicles will be dismantled and recycled in line with the ELV Regulations, which specify that 85% of each vehicle by weight is reused or recovered, rising to 95% by 2015.
Steve Diaper, general manager of Silverlake Garage, told letsrecycle.com today that he did not expect the new contract would bring in very many scrap cars because the number of abandoned cars was falling due to the high price of metal.
However, he stressed that the contract gave prestige as the company expanded and broke away from the “the old days of the scrap yard image”.
He said: “There is not a huge amount of cars around to be honest. Hampshire gave a figure from two years previous which was around 2,200 cars and we expect that to fall. But it is quite a prestigious contract to win and we do have a high number of voluntarily surrendered ELVs and insurance contracts as a salvage agent.”
He added: “We hope that the number of ELVs will increase and that the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform will push hard with publicity and crack down on illegal operators. We have already see five local sites closing which could signal some change.”
Because of the high price of metal, Mr Diaper explained that the firm would also collect Hampshire's cars for free.
He said: “There is a floor and ceiling price for scrap metal and if it fell considerably we would share the losses. There are invoices back and forwards but it almost works out as a free take-back.”
Hampshire
Hampshire county council said that the contract was a step on from Project Integra – a partnership between Hampshire's local authority's and private waste contractor to deal with waste in the county.
Cllr Brian Bayford, chairman of Hampshire's Project Integra, said: “Partnership working has been at the forefront of waste management in Hampshire for more than a decade and this contract is the next logical step. Hampshire is a beautiful country, with rolling countryside and miles of coastline. This contract will help it stay that way by dealing with abandoned vehicles promptly and efficiently.”
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