Following the liquidation of Manchester city council's former fridge contractor Britannia Import Export, thousands of waste fridges have been left in Oldham and Trafford Park.
Brixton Estates, the property developer that owns the Trafford Park Industrial Estate, has purchased the two Trafford Park sites and is now offering a contract for the removal and disposal of the fridges.
Fridge specialist M Baker Recycling and metals recycler EMR have nearby processing plants with fridge recycling capabilities – M Baker at St Helens and EMR at Warrington.
Waste management firm WRG is hoping to get involved in the disposal of the fridges from a purely management point of view. A spokesman for the company explained: “WRG would act as the manager for the project overall and would choose specific partners for transport and recycling. We would not carry out the physical recycling ourselves.”
WRG already has a presence in the Manchester area with a landfill site at Arpley, Warrington, as well as gaining the former Shanks North West landfill operations with parent company Terra Firma's acquisition of Shanks' landfill and energy business last year. The company has previous experience of managing waste fridges through a number of similar contracts.
Investigation
The Environment Agency has told letsrecycle.com it is investigating – alongside the liquidator, land owners and local authorities – the possibility of setting up funds to remove the fridges left at Britannia's other sites in Oldham.
A spokesman for the council said: “We are investigating various options to look at the creation of a clean up fund to assist the removal of the fridge's left at Britannia's sites in Manchester. We hope to have a solution soon.”
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