The Ozone Depleting Substances (ODS) regulation came into force on January 1 and CFC gases now have to be recovered from fridge and freezer insulation foam before the appliances can be recycled.
SimsMetal has reached an agreement with German company MeWa Recycling Maschinen und Anlagenbau GmbH to purchase a recycling plant which will enable it to deal with 300,000 domestic and commercial fridges and freezers a year. The plant will be located in the South West and should be operational by July 1. The contract also has provision for the supply of further plants and SimsMetal’s second plant is earmarked for the North Midlands.
Jeremy Sutcliffe, chief executive of SimsMetal, said: “This is a very important development for SimsMetal UK and follows closely on the restructuring of our UK business into two distinct divisions – Ferrous Recycling (headed by Tom Bird) and Recycling Services (headed by Graham Davy).”
Mr Davy said that the investment had been made after analysing several types of processes and added that he was confident that SimsMetal will be well positioned to offer an efficient disposal route for end-of-life fridges and other waste electrical goods under future legislation.
Problem
But local authorities still face the problem of what to do with the fridges until the recycling plants become operational and it is still unclear how long this will take, with estimates ranging from six to eight months. And although many local authorities seem to have the crisis under some control, one recycling officer told letsrecycle.com that the situation was “desperate” and added that he was praying that the public do not go new fridge shopping in the January sales.
While a Waste Management Licence is required for the storage of waste refrigerators, because of the lack of lead time to prepare for the legislation, the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and the Environment Agency has said that providing that councils apply for the relevant permits and no pollution is being caused, then the absence of a licence “will not be an issue”.
And although many local authorities have facilities to store fridges, recycling officers have already noticed a large increase in the fridges that they receive at their civic amenity sites.
Dave Ricketts, recycling officer for Ealing Borough Council, said that the authority had storage facilities for a “fair few fridges until the middle of next year” but said that the situation was a mess. “The number of fridges is increasing day by day with Currys, Iceland and other retailers stopping their collections, fridges are coming to CA sites in droves. We are now getting 50 a day, whereas before we were getting just a handful.”
Mr Ricketts said that the cost of storage was 25 per fridge but he added that they were still taking trade waste. He said: “We are worried about an increase in tipping so we decided to keep our charge at 53 a tonne. If we increased the charge then that could lead to more fly-tipping which we would have to pick them up.”
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