enfinium awards over £4,700 of funding to local West Midlands Repair Cafés

enfinium, a leading UK energy-from-waste operator, has today awarded four Repair Cafés near its Kelvin facility in Sandwell over £4,700 to support their work fixing household items, reducing waste, and saving local families money.

The four Cafés receiving the funding are the Friends of Bilbrook Repair Café, the Harbourne St John’s Church Repair Café, the Roliston Forestry Repair Café, and the Highley Shropshire Repair Café, all located in the West Midlands and the surrounding area.

The grant funding announced today will help cover the Cafés operating costs so they can continue to serve the people in the West Midlands, reducing the amount of waste produced by the local community. The funding will also enable the Cafés to run outreach programmes in the local community to build awareness of the importance of repair for the environment. For example, the Highley Shropshire Repair Café plans to liaise with a local primary school to teach children the basics of repair and reuse.

The most common items repaired were garden tools, small electronics, such as lamps and radios, and family heirlooms. Repairing items reduces the amount of waste sent to landfill and cuts overall CO₂ emissions. For example, maintaining a single television for an additional 7 years has been found to save the equivalent of 657kg CO₂.¹

To date, six Repair Cafés have received funding from enfinium’s £60,000 ‘Repair Café Support Fund’ since its launch in March 2024. The Fund was set up to support cafés within a 30-mile radius of one of enfinium’s facilities in Kent, North Wales, West Yorkshire or the West Midlands.

enfinium’s Repair Café Support Fund will reopen on 1 January 2025, and run until 31 May 2025. Eligible Repair Cafés can apply for funding of up to £1,500 per annum before the May deadline.

If you would like to learn more about the Repair Cafés Support Fund, or apply for funding, please visit the project website Repair Café or email communityfunding@enfinium.co.uk.

Karl Smyth, enfinium’s Director, External Affairs and Strategic Policy, said: “To achieve a sustainable economy, it is important that the UK reduces the amount of waste it produces. This is why enfinium are committed to supporting Repair Café initiatives in the communities in which we operate, such as West Bromwich. We are thrilled to provide funding to these four Repair Cafés to support their invaluable work in the local community.”

ENDS

Notes to editor

Application process

To apply for the Repair Café Support Fund, please visit the project website Repair Café, where the application criteria are available and the application forms can be downloaded.

Statistical information

1 Öko-Institut e.V., “Economic and environmental impacts of extending the durability of electrical and electronic equipment”, 2020, p. 6.

About enfinium

enfinium is a leading UK energy from waste operator with four operational sites in the UK, in West Yorkshire, Kent and Flintshire, and two in construction. enfinium diverts 2.3 million tonnes of unrecyclable waste from climate-damaging landfill, putting it to good use by turning it into home grown energy, enough to power 500,000 UK homes. enfinium’s ambition is to transform its facilities into local ‘decarbonisation hubs’ powered by the millions of tonnes of unrecyclable waste the UK will produce for decades to come. Using existing energy from waste infrastructure, enfinium could contribute to heat networks, produce electrolytic hydrogen, or use carbon capture technology to provide durable, high quality carbon removals which will be critical for the UK to achieve net zero by 2050. For more information on enfinium, please visit www.enfinium.co.uk.