About the Company

Reba Organizacja Odzysku (Recovery Organization) was registered on 28.01.2003. The initial share capital of the Company at present amounts to PLN 250,000. REBA is a company established by manufacturers and importers of batteries and it performs its activities under their direct supervision.

The Company’s mission is a systematic improvement of the condition of the environment in Poland by establishing a system of collection and recovery of waste batteries and portable accumulators. As the recovery organization established for the fulfillment of the statutory obligation of entrepreneurs that introduce batteries and portable accumulators to the territory of Poland, the company addresses its offer to all economic entities of this type. The activities of REBA Organizacja Odzysku S.A. are aimed at ensuring subjecting of all collected primary cells to recovery and recycling pursuant to the requirements provided for in the act (link). The Company performs its statutory tasks in collaboration with a broadly expanded network of partner entities and institutions.

The first group of such entities and institutions includes educational establishments, firms and public institutions that participate in the collection of waste batteries as they themselves use a lot of batteries or understand the need for the environmental protection and for forming the ecological awareness of the population.

The next group consists of the so-called Collection Operators – firms that ensure the emptying of containers for collection of batteries and their transport to sorting plants. Next, the sorted batteries are delivered to firms [called recycling entities] where they are subjected to the recovery or recycling processes.

The recycling entities constitute the last group of entrepreneurs in this chain of partners with which we collaborate in order to provide the processing of the bigger and bigger mass of waste batteries and portable accumulators pursuant to the regulations in force.

REBA Organizacja Odzysku S.A. has started the fifth year of its operational activities. In 2006, within the system established by REBA O.O., it was possible to collect and subject to recovery and recycling of over 604 tons of batteries and portable accumulators thanks to what there were achieved with a surplus both the required level of recovery of primary batteries at 15% and the level of recycling of portable nickel-cadmium accumulators at 35%. Thanks to that, the entrepreneurs that according to the data of the Ministry of the Environment introduce to the Polish market about 65% of batteries in total, fulfilled their statutory recovery and recycling obligation completely, and the company REBA O.O. for the first time in its history does not have an obligation to pay the product fee (link).

Achievement of this success took us four years what is the evidence of the size of a difficulty we faced in spring of 2003 when we were starting our operational activities and it confirms opinions of entrepreneurs according to which the levels of recovery and recycling of batteries and portable accumulators defined in the original version of the Act of May 11, 2001 on obligations of entrepreneurs regarding management of some wastes and the product and deposit fees [hereinafter referred to as the “product act”] have been set unrealistically. Fortunately, the entrepreneurs from the sector of manufacturers and importers of batteries managed to convince the Government and Parliament about the need to make the battery recovery levels real. Only thanks to that such level in 2006 amounted to 15% instead of 30% as it was originally written in the act passed in May 2001. It is worth remembering also at present when the work on a new act is starting which will introduce into the Polish law the regulations of the Directive 2006/66/EC on batteries and accumulators and waste batteries and accumulators.

REBA has been established and exists in order to collect waste batteries effectively – i.e. without incurring excessive costs. We do it more and more efficiently and what is more important, these achievements were accomplished almost exclusively by the entrepreneurs “on their own”, the ones that entrusted to us their obligation of the recovery and recycling of batteries, what means without the external sources of financing. The last year’s success, however, would not have been possible without the assistance and involvement of thousands of our partners – teachers and educators from schools and kindergartens, employees of municipal (communes) and county offices, waste management firms, owners of shops and employees of the retail sales network, building administrators and many other people that deal with an everyday organization of the selective collecting of batteries.
We cordially thank all our partners and allies!

REBA is an entity of a rather specific nature as we exclusively deal with waste batteries. Long time ago, however, we decided that many pro-ecological activities could, or even should, be performed together with other Recovery Organizations and non-government organizations [NGOs]. Such belief made us establish in 2005 – together with five other Recovery Organizations: [Branżowa O.O.; Eko-Punkt O.O., KOBA O.O., PSR O.O., RekoPol O.O.]– the Ecological Education Coalition and fulfill together the Program of Public Ecological Education. It is the expression of our feeling of responsibility for the awareness of consumers – everyday users of batteries and for submitting them information on the responsible and beneficial for the environment way of getting rid of a hazardous waste such as waste batteries. We will continue those activities, improving their form and ways.
Please find below the most essential information on the present activities of the Company.