enfinium, a leading UK energy from waste operator, has today announced it has awarded over £6,500 to four Repair Cafés across West Yorkshire. The grant funding has been allocated to the Silsden Repair Café, Slawit Repair Cafe, Elland Repair Café and St Lukes Beeston Repair Cafe situated near to enfinium’s Ferrybridge and Skelton Grange facilities in West Yorkshire. The announcement follows just days after International Repair Day, a global celebration of community repair.
The grant funding will support and expand the services the four Repair Cafés, enabling them to continue to repair faulty household items, diverting waste from landfill, and helping individuals keep cherished possessions for longer. 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
One of the beneficiaries, the Silsden Repair Café, will use its funding on training for its volunteers, venue hire costs, and to purchase new equipment. Since being established in June 2023, Silsden Repair Café has managed to repair 92% of the 1,607 items brought in for repair, which means diverting around 60 items from landfill every month. The Repair Café received a BBC Radio Leeds ‘Make a Difference Award’ in the ‘Green’ category in 2024, recognising its environmental contribution.
Another beneficiary, Slawit Repair Cafe located in Slaithwaite, intends to use part of the grant funding to deliver three dedicated Linux repair sessions before the end of 2025. These sessions involve installing Linux operating systems in computers currently operating on Microsoft 10, 8, or 7 for free of charge. With Microsoft ending support for Windows 10, these older systems are becoming increasingly vulnerable to security risks and technical failures. By helping people transition to Linux, Slawit Repair Cafe is helping extend the lifespan of these devices and preventing what would otherwise become electronic waste from ending up in landfill.
To date, 21 Repair Cafés have received funding from enfinium’s Repair Café Support Fund since it was launched in March 2024. The Fund was set up to support Repair Cafés within a 30-mile radius of one of enfinium’s facilities in Kent, West Yorkshire or the West Midlands, as well as those based anywhere in the regions of Conwy, Denbighshire, Flintshire, Gwynedd and the Isle of Anglesey in North Wales.
Mike Maudsley, Chief Executive Officer at enfinium, said: “I had the pleasure of visiting one of our Repair Café Support Fund beneficiaries, Silsden Repair Cafe, on International Repair Day and was able to see first-hand the impressive work they do to keep waste out of landfill. Repair Cafés are important community resources that help people save money, protect the environment, and show how the circular economy can be driven forward by local action.”
Louise Farnell, Treasurer at Silsden Repair Café, said: “This donation marks the second time we have received funding from enfinium through its Repair Café Support Fund. With this continued support, our Repair Café continues to go from strength to strength, making a real difference by keeping household items in use for longer and out of landfill.”
Spanner Spencer, Founder of Slawit Repair Cafe, said: “enfinium’s funding has not only supported our monthly repair sessions but also enabled us to expand our offering with new services, such as our Linux repair sessions, which will help keep electrical waste out of landfill. The Repair Café Support Fund’s contribution to the only Repair Cafe in the Colne Valley helps serve a rural community that has little to no access to repair facilities or businesses.”
enfinium’s Repair Café Support Fund will reopen on 1 January 2026 and run until 31 May 2026. Eligible Repair Cafés can apply for funding of up to £1,500 per annum before the 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.
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 five operational sites in the UK, in West Yorkshire, Kent and Flintshire, and one in construction. enfinium diverts 2.7 million tonnes of unrecyclable waste from climate-damaging landfill, putting it to good use by turning it into home grown energy, enough to power 600,000 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 on enfinium, please visit www.enfinium.co.uk.
