Today enfinium, a leading UK energy from waste operator, has awarded the first two grants of its £20,000 2025 Repair Café Support Fund to two Repair Cafés located in north Wales. The combined grants worth over £1,100 aim to support the two Repair Cafés in helping their local communities to repair rather than replace faulty household items for free of charge, diverting waste away from environmentally damaging landfill, and enabling people to keep hold of cherished items for longer.
The Mold Daniel Owen Repair Café in Flintshire and the Wrecsam Repair Café are the first two recipients of the 2025 grant funding, submitted for grant support by Repair Café Wales, a registered charity that opens and supports Repair Cafés across Wales.
The Mold Daniel Owen Repair Café will use the grant funding to contribute towards operating costs and promotional materials, helping to encourage greater community participation and use of its services. The Repair Café is run in partnership with NEWCIS (the North East Wales Carer’s Information Service) and aims to secure greater engagement with unpaid carers in north east Wales, an often overlooked and vulnerable group.
The Wrecsam Repair Café, which has repaired nearly 400 items since June 2022, plans to use the funding to support volunteer attendance and calibrate repair tools. The support will also help the Repair Café continue operating for the next 12 months out of a large, welcoming venue located conveniently for nearby residents to benefit from the service. Wrecsam Repair Café has plans to start a ‘Give and Take’ free stall, promoting the idea of a sharing economy where money is not required for exchange.
Repairing items instead of throwing them away reduces the amount of waste sent to landfill and cuts overall carbon dioxide emissions. For example, maintaining a single television for an additional 7 years has been found to save the equivalent of 657kg of carbon dioxide.1
Philip Curds, Head of ESG & Sustainability at enfinium, said: “We are delighted to have kicked off this year’s Repair Café Support Fund by providing funding to two deserving Repair Cafés in North Wales. The funding will help these Cafés continue to play a vital role in reducing waste, keeping valuable resources in use for longer, and fostering a more circular local economy. Seeing the impact Repair Cafés have on giving new life to old goods and bringing people together to share skills make us proud to support these valuable community organisations.”
Jackie Knightly, Repair Café Wrecsam, said: “Funding from the Repair Café Support Fund, with support from Repair Cafe Wales in the application process, is a brilliant boost to our initiatives. This funding will enable us continue our work in the community, providing a service that promotes sustainability and brings people together. We are grateful for the support and look forward to the impact this will have on our Repair Café’s amazing volunteers and the local area.”
Repair Cafés that are eligible to apply for funding from the enfinium Repair Café Support Fund are those located within a 30-mile radius of one of enfinium’s facilities in Kent, West Yorkshire, or the West Midlands. In addition, for this year, an expanded geographical area around enfinium’s Parc Adfer facility in North Wales permits applications from Repair Cafés in the counties of Conwy, Denbighshire, Flintshire, Gwynedd, and the Isle of Anglesey in Wales. Welsh Repair Cafés can also contact Repair Café Wales in these areas for further support in submitting an application.
Eligible Repair Cafés can apply for funding of up to £1,500 per annum before the 30th June 2025 deadline.
If you would like to learn more about the Repair Café Support Fund, or apply for funding, please visit the project webpage, Repair Café, on our website or email communityfunding@enfinium.co.uk.
Vici Ladeji from Repair Cafe Wales, said: “As part of our commitment to reducing waste, supporting local communities, and encouraging repair as part of everyday life, we’re delighted that we can help Welsh Repair Cafés successfully apply for funding from enfinium’s Repair Café Support Fund in an effort to improve and expand their services. We are delighted to bring together funding and beneficiaries to nurture a cleaner, more sustainable Wales”.
ENDS
Application process
To apply for the Repair Café Support Fund, please visit the project webpage, Repair Café, on our website, 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 on enfinium, please visit www.enfinium.co.uk.
About Repair Café Wales
Repair Café Wales is a registered Charity (1210850) supporting pop up events held on regular dates where the local community can get their broken household items repaired for free by volunteers. It’s a social way to combat the general frustration with wasted materials, resources and a loss of skills. Established in 2017, the charity now supports over 140 repair cafes and 1,000 volunteers every month, to date over 24,066 items have been fixed. In 2024 alone, Repair Café Wales saved an estimated 233,497 kg of CO2e, equivalent to 1,037,085 miles of driving! We are committed to opening repair cafes in every town, village, city and suburb in Wales, we are focusing our energies on nurturing a cleaner, more sustainable world whilst our communities are inclusive and safe environments for people of all ages and backgrounds to share knowledge, skills, and to generally connect. Our core values are Waste Reduction, Sharing Skills and Community Connection. We are working for our communities to influence standards for goods and government policy, collecting data from our community hubs, and helping to inform policy decisions that promote a greener, more sustainable world. For more of Repair Café Wales, please visit Repair Café Wales – Local Community Repair Cafés.
