The announcement, which comes ahead of Sunday's (May 31) deadline for prospective schemes to submit their scheme applications to the environment agencies, will see the two companies working under the name 'BatteryBack'.
The firms plan to begin registering producer members in June, ahead of producer responsibility for battery recycling formally kicking in on January 1, 2010.
Explaining how the partnership would work on the ground, WasteCare director Peter Hunt said: “The creation of BatteryBack will bring economies of scale in terms of our combined collection, infrastructure and treatment network.
“Our intent is to split the core activities of collections and treatment with Veolia Environmental Services benefiting from our mutual experience and providing an efficient, competitive service, whilst at the same time inviting other collectors and waste treatment facilities to provide additional services subject to cost efficiency,” he added.
WasteCare has been running BatteryBack as a national recovery service for waste portable batteries since July 2008 (see letsrecycle.com story); collecting, treating and recycling batteries from retailers, offices, schools and local authorities.
It already works with Veolia for the collection and treatment of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), and Veolia's managing director for commercial, industrial and hazardous wastes, David Lusher, said that the link-up would add to his company's existing compliance services.
“We are confident that by joining forces with WasteCare we can provide the most comprehensive, cost-effective service to a large number of customers across the country,” he said.
“What this move also means is that we can now offer customers an even more comprehensive range of compliance services including WEEE, packaging and batteries,” he added.
Alongside the Veolia/WasteCare partnership, other prospective battery compliance schemes are thought to include ERP, Budget Pack (see letsrecycle.com story) and Valpak.
The government has indicated that it expects there will be less than 10 compliance schemes in total, with the announcement of which schemes have received Environment Agency approval set to be made on September 30.
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