Two million fridges recycled at county plant
A county recycling plant has finished processing its two millionth fridge.
The online electricals retailer AO is celebrating recycling more two million fridges at its recycling plant at Halesfield 15 in Telford.
The firm said that if it lined up all the fridges recycled at the site they would stretch for more than 2,000 miles – equalling the distance from Edinburgh to the North Pole.
Robert Sant, MD of AO Recycling, said the work helps prevent more damage to the environment through illegally abandoned fridges being strewn across the countryside.
He said: “We’re so pleased that not only have we saved a huge two million fridges from being fly-tipped, but we’ve disposed of them in the safest way possible.
"At AO, we always want to do more. As a retailer, we want to take responsibility for the entire recycling process and hopefully it won’t be long before the plastics we produce can be used to create brand new fridges.”
With several recycling sites forced to close due to Covid-19 restrictions over the past 18 months, the nation has seen an increase in fly tipping.
During the lockdown period of April 2020 to April 2021, AO said it received more than 328,000 unwanted fridges at its recycling plant from customers – up by 68 per cent compared to the previous year.
AO has been disposing of its customers unwanted fridges since 2017 – all thanks to a fridge crunching machine called Bertha.
Fridges are notoriously difficult to dispose of safely, as they contain more harmful gases than the average appliance.
But a spokesman for AO said its 80-tonne machine can process 100 fridges every hour.
With Bertha’s help, AO can process more than 700,000 fridges annually, which is 20 per cent of all white goods scrapped every year.
The machine is the height of a three-story house.
It works by spinning heavy metal chains inside an airtight container at around 500 revolutions per minute, creating a vortex that breaks the fridge into tiny pieces – like a supersized kitchen blender.
The machine also takes care of the harmful gases and oils stored in fridges that can damage the environment if released into the atmosphere.
Dangerous gases are trapped between tiny pockets of insulation foam, which are removed inside the sealed chamber.
AO said it is the only recycling plant in the world to collect 100 per cent of harmful gasses released from a fridge – thanks to Bertha’s efficiency.
Once the fridges have been processed by Bertha the materials are then reused in other household items, such as sustainable ventilation products.
