enfinium, a leading energy from waste operator, has today launched its flagship support fund for local Repair Cafés. enfinium has committed £60,000 over a three-year period to help Repair Café’s within the vicinity of its UK operations fix repairable goods, reduce waste, and save families money.
A Repair Café is a community-based not-for-profit, often with charitable status, offering free repairs of common household items such as toasters, hoovers and bicycles. Every item repaired saves a family from the undue expense of buying a replacement. Research has shown that extending a product’s lifespan can lead to significant emissions savings. For example, maintaining a single television for an additional 7 years results in a carbon emission saving of 657kg.1
This funding commitment comes at the same time that research by enfinium and Savanta ComRes has found that two-thirds (67%) of the UK population would ideally repair rather than replace broken items, but a similar majority (68%) currently find it cheaper to replace them. 71% of respondents also said they found replacing broken items easier than repairing them.
Any Repair Café located within a 30-mile radius of one of enfinium’s facilities across Kent, North Wales, West Yorkshire or the West Midlands can apply for funding of up to £1,500 per annum. The deadline for entries is 31 May 2024.
Building on enfinium’s encouragement of repair, enfinium has called for legislation to increase transparency of a product’s waste footprints and broadening the Right to Repair legislation which in turn reduces consumer demand.2
Mike Maudsley, CEO of enfinium, said: “Making it easier to repair household items is critical to reduce the amount of unrecyclable waste we produce. Through our new fund, we hope to support repair cafes across the UK reduce the amount of waste that ends up in climate-damaging landfill.” 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
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.
2 “A Vision for the Future of UK Waste”: https://enfinium.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Enfinium_Future-of-Waste_A5.pdf
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 Savanta
The research was conducted by Savanta via their weekly UK omnibus with fieldwork taking place in Q4 2023. Data was weighted to be UK nationally representative across age, gender and region.
Savanta is a fast-growing, data, market research and advisory company. We inform and inspire our clients through powerful data, empowering technology and high-impact consulting, all designed to help our clients make better decisions and achieve faster progress. For more on Savanta, please visit savanta.com or linkedin.com/company/savanta/.
