Machinery owned by German firm SEG will visit a former incinerator site near junction 16 of the M4, where the council has 9,000 waste fridges.
Waste manager Geoff Davies said: “Our site is licensed for both storage and treatment. People may have seen similar equipment before, but not working on a mobile basis. It is very much an experiment.”
He expects the operation to cost around 14 per fridge, although the council has not finally calculated infrastructure and security costs.
Mr Davies explained that the stage one process will extract CFCs and HCFCs, plus the compressor, with emissions “well within permitted levels”.
Stage two will see the fridge carcasses reduced to reusable metal and foam, with CFC emissions down to only 0.02 per cent.
Email: gdavies@swindon.gov.uk for more details.
Meanwhile, Somerset county council has asked residents to check if unwanted fridges and freezers might be of use to others before dumping them.
The county received 312,000 from the government last month to help recycle its fridge mountain, which stands at around 24,000 units a year.
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