AO recycles its two millionth fridge
Online electricals retailer AO has reached the milestone of recycling over two million fridges at its plant in Telford.
Several council recycling sites were forced to close during the Covid-19 lockdowns, which meant AO saw a 68% increase in unwanted fridges being received from customers.
With fridges being notoriously tricky to dispose of safely due to the fact that they contain more harmful gases than the average appliance, AO uses 80-tonne machines that can tackle 100 fridges every hour. This enables the retailer to process over 700,000 fridges annually, which is 20% of all white goods scrapped every year.
The machines also take care of the harmful gases and oils stored in fridges that can damage the environment if released into the atmosphere. Once the machines have done their job, their materials can then reused in other household items such as sustainable ventilation products.
Robert Sant, managing director of AO Recycling, 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.”
