Mr Meacher stated at a meeting of local authorities, retailers and stakeholders earlier today (July 18) that 40m would be dedicated towards storage, transport and recycling costs of old fridges, covering the current financial year.
Details of how the money will be allocated remain unclear. It is thought that there could even be some difficulties in the way the money is given out. It may be subject to regulation by the European Commission under state aid legislation because it will act as a form of subsidy to companies carrying out the fridge recycling work.
It was also concluded that local authorities and retailers agreed that a reintroduction of the retail-take-back scheme should be established. Discussions were made on how this might be achieved, although no specifics of this have been released.
The additional 40 million follows money made available to local authorities last year to deal with the challenge of storing and recycling old fridges.
The announcement comes after the recent opening of the UK’s first fixed and fully-licenced fridge reprocessing plant in Merseyside. Prices for handling end-of-life fridges have now fallen to about 12 per unit. There are also reports that Germany is reaching saturation point following the imports of large numbers of fridges for recycling. Other reports suggest that fridges are finding their way further afield and possibly illicitly out of the European Union.
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