UK Recyclers Prepare to Tackle Old Refrigerators

Britain is closer to ridding itself of a mountain of old refrigerators as specialized recycling plants prepare to come on line, but it is unclear how long it will take to clear the backlog.

Several companies are working against the clock in the UK to set up special plants that will safely dispose of the chlorofluorocarbons contained in old refrigerators that have piled up around the country, posing a serious threat to the environment.

A European Union directive launched earlier this year orders the ozone-depleting insulation foam to be stripped out of old refrigerators before scrapping, but unlike some of its EU counterparts, Britain had no facilities in place to do the job.

A spokesman for the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: "We don't really have exact figures. It will depend on how many companies come on line. it's hard to estimate."

Recyclers estimate that some 2.5 million refrigerators are discarded every year in the UK, and since December alone, more than 800,000 are thought to have been discarded.

European Metal Recycling, one of the UK's top recycling firms, plans to set up a plant near London that it plans to have up and running by the end of June.

"Longer-term the main objective is to make sure that fridges are dealt with in the UK and the main thing we think is that they should not be shipped out to the Netherlands or Germany when it's our problem and we should be dealing with it here," EMR communications manager Cherry Read said.

EMR's new plant can treat 300,000 units a year and the company said it will need to run around the clock to make any inroads into the piles throughout the country.

"A 300,000-unit won't be sufficient...obviously there is a backlog running and we will need to run at a double shift to start clearing it," Read said.

EMR has ordered another two $2.70 million treatment facilities, which it plans to install in or around London.

Because of the previous lack of treatment plants that meet the EU's strict standards, refrigerator recycling has become a highly competitive market in the United Kingdom.

The DEFRA spokesman said: "We've had at least a dozen companies interested in investing in plants and machinery but what stage each is at, I don't know. It all depends on how many companies are establishing these plants."

Evans Logistics, a waste management company in south Wales, plans to use a mobile treatment plant, but is still waiting for government approval to use the machine on more than one site.

"One of the reasons for having a mobile plant is that we want to go to our customers rather than compelling our customers to bring their fridges to us," Philip Evans, company secretary, said.

"We couldn't license a mobile plant. We were asked to identify a site where we could use the plant on and the process would belong to the site rather than the equipment," he said.

Evans Logistics will be able to treat 4,000 to 5,000 units a week and hopes to get the green light from the environment authorities to start working at the beginning of April. Reuters