enfinium, a leading UK energy-from-waste operator, has today awarded a repair café near its Kemsley facility in Sittingbourne £1,500 to support its work to provide local residents with a resource to repair rather than replace goods, helping people save money and create less waste.
The Sheppey Matters Repair Café, located on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent, will use enfinium’s grant funding to help cover the repair café’s operating costs and to integrate a quarterly repair workshop for children alongside its existing repair activities. enfinium’s funding will both help reduce the amount of waste produced by the local community and help foster repair mindsets amongst younger people living in the area.
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, seven 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.
Philip Curds, enfinium’s Head of ESG and Sustainability, said: “Sheppey Matters Repair Café plays a vital role in the local community by offering free repairs for everyday household items. Their work makes a big difference for people in the area, allowing them to save money and reducing the amount of waste headed to landfill. By supporting initiatives like these, we can lower consumption, cut carbon emissions, and move towards a more sustainable future. That’s why we are thrilled to provide funding to Sheppey Matters Repair Café, which has been empowering the community, and now younger people, to reduce their waste.”
Nigel Martin, Sheppey Matters, Chief Executive Officer, said: “We are delighted to have secured funding from enfinium’s Repair Café Support Fund. This funding will help attract new, younger participants to repair café, alongside providing an activity for the children of parents who already attend. Doing so will foster repair mindsets amongst young people in the area, who will hopefully consider reuse and repair before throwing something away.”
ENDS
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.
