Enva invests £9.5m in UK fridge recycling

UK: Waste management company Enva has announced a £9.5m investment in its UK fridge recycling business that will increase its overall treatment capacity to more than 2.3 million appliances.

The announcement comes as the UK faces a widespread closure of fridge recycling centres due to insufficient capacity. 

Enva’s new investment in permanent treatment infrastructure, alongside additional short-term storage, will significantly increase the UK’s ability to recycle fridges domestically and tackle the constraints experienced across the market during 2026.

The investment will see Enva install a new fridge recycling line at its Grantham facility, adding approximately 8,000 tonnes of annual processing capability when it becomes fully operational in February 2028. This will bring the Grantham fridge processing capability to around 33,000 tonnes per annum.

The new line will replace older technology at the site and will be installed alongside Enva’s existing fridge processing operation, ensuring there is no interruption to customer services or reduction in treatment capability during the development.

The Grantham project is said to form part of a wider programme of investment by Enva to significantly increase the scale and resilience of its UK e-waste recycling infrastructure.

This includes the company’s new 124,000ft² fridge recycling facility in Dartford, which is expected to become operational in February next year. Designed to process approximately 35,000 tonnes of WEEE and fridges annually, Enva says the facility will use advanced recycling technology capable of recovering more than 98% of fridge components. The new Grantham line will use the same technology.

Enva says that the increase in domestic treatment capacity will remove the potential need for appliances to be exported to Europe for recycling, helping ensure valuable recovered materials remain within the UK resource economy.

The company is also introducing additional temporary storage at Bury St Edmunds to support customers before the new Dartford facility becomes operational. The short-term measure has capacity for 5,000 tonnes of storage and provides a defined onward treatment route for appliances affected by current treatment constraints, with material stored temporarily before being processed at Dartford as the new facility comes online.

The Bury provision follows Environment Agency approval earlier this year for Enva to temporarily store up to 2,000 tonnes, approximately 50,000 fridges, at its Corby facility as part of its response to sustained pressure on UK fridge treatment infrastructure.

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