enfinium, the leading energy-from-waste operator, has today awarded the Ruthin Repair Café, located in Denbighshire, £1,500 of funding to help it to repair fixable goods, reduce unnecessary household waste, and save local families money.
Ruthin Repair Café, a community based not-for-profit, has been repairing household goods for local residents since February 2020. Running once a month, its team of 25 volunteers have helped fix 963 items to date across 31 Repair Café events. The most common repairs are electricals, especially toasters and vacuum cleaners, followed by sewing repairs, such as soft toys and clothes.
The grant funding announced today will cover the running costs, including room hire and consumables, and enable training for our volunteers to develop their skills in areas such as first aid training, tool sharpening and PAT safety-testing certification, which is critical for electrical item repairs.
Every item repaired saves a family from the expense of replacing it, reduces the amount of waste sent to climate-damaging landfill and reduces carbon emissions. For example, maintaining a single television for an additional 7 years has been found to save the equivalent of 657kg CO2.1
In March 2024, enfinium launched its £60,000 ‘Repair Café Support Fund’, 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. Eligible Repair Cafés can apply for funding of up to £1,500 per annum before the 31 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.
Mike Maudsley, CEO of enfinium, said: “Repairing broken items is a critical part of reducing the amount of waste we produce. In turn, this leads to lower consumption, lower carbon emissions and less waste ending up in landfill. This is why we are delighted to be awarding Ruthin’s Repair Café with funding today, which has been helping local families to reduce waste and save money since 2020.”
Anne Lewis, Ruthin Repair Café Organiser, said: “We are thrilled to have been awarded this funding from enfinium. The funds will enable us to continue to help support the local residents of Ruthin, repair their broken items, and provide training to our fantastic team of volunteers.”
Llyr Griffiths MS for the North Wales Region commented: “I’m delighted that Ruthin repair café has received this funding from enfinium. It will enable volunteers to ensure that items that would otherwise end up in landfill are able to be recycled, reused and repurposed. It’s a simple but wonderfully effective idea that benefits the environment and also saves people money at a time when the cost-of-living crisis is a very real problem for so many families. I would urge any other repair cafes that are within 30 miles of the Parc Adfer facility on Deeside to apply for funding from enfinium.”
Sam Rowlands MS for the North Wales Region commented: “I’m delighted to see that enfinium have just awarded their first grant from their Repair Café fund, with Ruthin Repair Café benefiting from a £1,500 grant. Repair Cafes have become a more frequent sight in recent years as people want to cut down on waste and repair household items, rather than dispose of them buy a new replacement. enfinium play a vital role in disposing of the rubbish that residents across North Wales put in their black bins, and their latest initiative continues to support our circular economy.”
The Ruthin Repair Café takes place on the first Saturday of every month at the Naylor Leyland Centre in Ruthin from 10.00 – 13.00 and is free and open to all.
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, p6.
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 on enfinium, please visit www.enfinium.co.uk.
