enfinium, a leading UK energy from waste operator, has today announced it has awarded £4,771 to three Repair Cafés across Kent. The grant funding has been allocated to the Folkstone Repair Café, Tunbridge Wells Repair Café, and Maidstone Repair Café, all situated near to enfinium’s Kemsley facility in Kent.
The grant funding will support and expand the services of the three 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 Tunbridge Repair Cafe, intends to use the grant funding to deliver the Tunbridge Wells Repair Academy, an initiative that aims to attract greater Repair Café attendance among those aged between 12 and 14 years old. The Tunbridge Wells Repair Academy will hold practical sessions on how to repair household items, beginning with textiles and electrical items before advancing to jewellery and ceramics. These sessions serve to engage younger people on the importance of sustainability and the need to reduce unnecessary waste among the next generation.
Another beneficiary, the Maidstone Repair Café, has used its grant funding to bring together its volunteers and those from six other Kent Repair Cafés for a joint volunteer appreciation event. The gathering celebrated the shared success of Kent Repair Café volunteers in helping fix faulty household items from across the county and aimed to strengthen support for their ongoing efforts. Since first launching in January 2024, the Maidstone Repair Café has prevented over 2,900kg of waste, equivalent to approximately over 25,000kg of CO2 emissions prevented.
To date, 24 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.
Philip Curds, Head of ESG & Sustainability at enfinium, said: “I had the pleasure of attending the Maidstone Repair Café’s volunteer appreciation event and it reaffirmed the importance of community-led action in preventing household waste. We at enfinium recognise the role we play as part of the circular economy, and we’re proud to support initiatives that make a meaningful contribution to advancing circularity.”
Duncan Edwards, Committee Chair of Maidstone Climate Action Network which runs the Maidstone Repair Café, said: “We were delighted to have enfinium attend our volunteer appreciation event, made possible by their funding. The Repair Café network only runs because volunteers make that possible. It was time that we gave back to those volunteers that give so much to improving the environment by helping keeping household items in use for longer.”
Richard Segall Jones, Director at Tunbridge Wells Repair Café, said: “Tackling unnecessary waste isn’t just a problem in the present, it’s an issue we will always needs to address. That’s why it is integral that the repair movement engages with younger people, showing them firsthand the value of repairing faulty household items to inspire repair mindsets among the next generation. Funding from enfinium’s Repair Café Support Fund is helping us achieve that.”
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.
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.
