Germany’s fridge recycling emissions “humiliatingly bad”

Even a decade after CFC coolants were banned from new appliances, the “careless” recycling of fridges in Germany has a global warming potential equivalent to 4.3 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions a year, researchers claimed.

CFCs are said to have a global warming potential 10,720 times greater than carbon dioxide, but a recovery rate of just 36.6% is being achieved in Germany.

By comparison, a 47% recovery rate was achieved by the UK back in 2003 (see letsrecycle.com story).

German environmental group Deutsche Umwelthilfe, which carried out the study, said 80% of the 2.4 million waste fridges arising in Germany each year still contain CFCs.

It said an estimated 36 million appliances still being operated in Germany also contain CFCs.

With just a third of CFC emissions being recovered, the group said the impact of fridge recycling dwarfs the emissions savings achieved by the country's strict new building insulation requirements, which is believed to be saving 900,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions a year.

“Humiliating”

DUH national director Jürgen Rech said of the research: “The figures that we have derived are astonishingly poor for a leading industrial nation such as Germany. With barely more than a third of the CFCs in refrigeration equipment being recovered at present and with a continuing downward trend, the situation in Germany is humiliatingly bad compared to other European countries.”

The group has written to the President of Germany's Federal Environment Agency, Andreas Troge to call for action. It wants to see a legal clampdown on CFC emissions, citing the system in Austria and Denmark, where 90% of CFCs must be recovered by fridge recyclers.

At present Germany's waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) legislation requires the use of “state-of-the-art” technology, which has been defined by German quality institute RAL as a 90% recovery of CFCs.

Maria Elander, DUH project head for recycling-based manufacturing systems, said: “If less than 90% is recovered, then the fridge recycling activities are failing to meet the required state-of-the-art standard specified in German law, and the regulatory authority must intervene.”

Quality Assurance Association RAL agreed with the DUH group that “immediate action by all stakeholders in the fridge recycling sector” had to be taken following the CFC study.

It said the “startlingly bad” recovery levels shown up by the DUH study had “shocked even the experienced observers at RAL” – but agreed that recovery levels were as bad as the report suggested.

“Scandalous”

RAL has argued for 10 years for stronger controls on CFCs in fridge recycling, and said today that the low recovery levels highlighted by the DUH report had been the “inevitable outcome” of the lack of binding regulations in that area.

Christoph Becker, secretary of RAL, said: “There is no point in looking back and trying to identify the culprits for this scandalous state of affairs. There should be a concerted effort with all market stakeholders aiming to do what is necessary to ensure that the goal of 90% CFC recovery is attained as soon as possible.”

RAL called for changes in the German WEEE legislation to “establish binding quality requirements and efficient monitoring procedures” for fridge recycling operations.

“The deficiencies uncovered in the DUH probe should also have a significant impact on the upcoming revision of the European WEEE Directive,” it said.