THE Environment Agency is to investigate the way fridge recycling is being carried out after a recent audit of UK facilities returned large differences in the amount of ozone depleting substances (ODS) being recovered.
Of eight recycling sites surveyed, one managed to recover 337g of ODS per fridge, but another site managed just half that at 168g. The Environment Agency considers a recovery rate of at least 260g of ODS per fridge (a recovery rate of 70-80%) as being 'reasonable' but only four operators managed to meet or exceed that figure.

As a result of these findings, the Environment Agency is seeking to improve the performance of the sites and a programme to determine the baseline recovery efficiency of each site will be agreed with the operators.

Full story in the March issue of ACR News due out 20th February