Why unwanted fridges are piling up at recycling centres across England and Wales

Capacity has been overwhelmed by heatwaves that have pushed white goods to breaking point

“In Oxfordshire, recycling centres are filling almost three articulated lorries with discarded fridges every week,” says Simon Perry of W&S Waste Management, which runs a recycling centre in Ardley.

Together, those fridges would cover an area just under half the size of a football pitch. But the space to store them – in Oxfordshire and beyond – has become a growing problem after the Local Government Association (LGA) warned that a mountain of broken fridges was rising in waste centres across England and Wales, as this year’s heatwaves push more white goods to breaking point, and a trend for second/backup refrigeration products keeps growing.