Why are 3,000 fridges piling up in Norfolk?

Thousands of fridges and freezers are being stored at a Norfolk recycling site due to a national backlog of specialist waste collections.

Around 3,000 appliances are being stored at Mayton Wood Recycling Centre near Coltishall as a short-term solution, but Norfolk County Council said it is nearly at full capacity.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said the national situation is due to a loss of specialist facilities and that it was "pushing producers to fix the problem."

Kate Murrell, assistant director for waste at the council, said: "We don't want to see fridges and freezers stored like this, they need to be managed properly through that reprocessing system."

By law, fridges and freezers are required to be disposed of properly to avoid the gases or materials used in making them, damaging the environment.

The appliances contain fluorinated greenhouse gas and foam insulating materials that can release harmful gases if not disposed of at specialist centres.

But the Local Government Association (LGA) said there has been a national shortage of specialist processing capacity due to the closure of some sites and a spate of incidents including fires.

The LGA said this has led to some producer compliance schemes, which arrange and fund the collection and recycling of electrical waste on behalf of manufacturers, to delay or stop collections from council sites.

The council runs 19 recycling centres, but due to the situation, only seven of them, located in Caister, Dereham, Hempton, King's Lynn, Norwich and Thetford, are able to accept cooling appliances.

In April, the county lost its recycling centre in Thetford following a significant fire.

Murrell said that due to lack of national capacity, the council is running out of treatment facilities to send the appliances to.

While the county council has forged a short-term solution, she said the storage could not be accommodated in the long-term.

She said: "The important thing for us is to keep the service running for customers, and what we've had to do is restrict fridges and freezers just to our seven largest recycling centres."

As capacity starts to wane, the council hopes the government will "urgently" step in to help Norfolk and other counties who have the same problem.

Reform UK councillor and cabinet member for waste and recycling, Patrick Gould said: "The central government or the minister involved needs to take this matter in and urgently provide us with suitable companies who will reprocess or recycle these products as soon as possible.

"Once we have exceeded our capacity to store the excess, then we will have to stop and that is a very unfortunate position to be in."

However, Murrell said there is "light at the end of the tunnel".

She said: "We are starting to see a little bit of movement... we can't underestimate that this is a national issue and it does need action by the industry and the government, as well as local authorities, trying to keep the system running."

The Environment Agency has allowed the temporary storing of fridges and other cooling equipment on unlicensed sites, provided conditions are met.

A Defra spokesperson said: "Delays to collection or being unable to dispose of your fridge or freezer is frustrating, and we are pushing producers to fix this fast and keep disruption to a minimum."

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