What happens to your old appliance when it is recycled?

Updated 6 November 2026 · By the Appliance Disposal team

Short answer: At a UK WEEE facility, fridges and freezers are degassed and their foam is processed in a sealed plant before the cabinet is shredded. Washing machines, cookers and dishwashers are shredded and separated into steel, aluminium, copper, plastic and glass. Small electricals are sorted to remove batteries and hazardous parts before being processed. Most of the weight of a large appliance can be recovered as material.

What happens to your old appliance when it is recycled?

Sorting by stream

WEEE is sorted into streams because each type needs different treatment. The main household streams are temperature exchange equipment, which covers fridges, freezers and air conditioning units; large household appliances such as washing machines, cookers and dishwashers; small mixed WEEE; and display equipment such as televisions and monitors. Keeping them separate from the start is what makes high recovery rates possible.

The cost of running this system is largely paid for by the producers who place electrical goods on the UK market, through producer compliance schemes. That is why recycling centres can accept household appliances free, and why retailers fund take-back. A private collector's charge covers the collection, labour and transport, and the gate fee at the receiving facility where one applies.

Fridges and freezers

Compressor oil and refrigerant gas are drained from the cooling circuit
The compressor is removed and sent for metal recovery
The cabinet is shredded inside a sealed, low-oxygen chamber
Gas released from the insulation foam is captured and destroyed
Steel, aluminium, copper and plastic are separated for recycling
The foam residue is sent for controlled disposal or energy recovery

Treatment of fridges is closely controlled because the stakes are high. Facilities handling them must meet recognised standards for how much gas they recover from each unit, and they are inspected by the environmental regulator. A single fridge handled badly releases far more harmful gas than a careful plant would let escape from hundreds of units, which is why the destination of your old fridge matters more than for any other appliance.

This is why fridges cost more to dispose of. Older units contain CFCs and HCFCs that damage the ozone layer and are powerful greenhouse gases, and newer units contain flammable hydrocarbon refrigerants that have to be handled safely.

Washing machines, cookers and dishwashers

Large appliances are depolluted first, which means removing capacitors, cables and any parts that need special treatment. They are then shredded and passed through magnets, eddy current separators and other systems that split the material into ferrous metal, non-ferrous metal such as aluminium and copper, plastic, glass and rubber. The concrete counterweights from washing machines are separated and can be crushed for aggregate.

Cookers bring a few extra steps. Oven door glass is heat-resistant and melts at a different temperature from bottle and window glass, so it cannot simply go in with ordinary glass recycling and is separated out. Enamelled steel from oven cavities and hob tops is recycled with other steel. Dishwashers contain stainless steel tubs and pumps that are worth recovering, and their circuit boards go with the rest of the electronics.

Small electricals

Kettles, toasters, vacuum cleaners and similar items are sorted to remove batteries and any parts containing hazardous substances. Some plastics in small electricals contain flame retardants classed as persistent organic pollutants, which must be destroyed rather than recycled, so sorting matters. Circuit boards are sent to specialist refiners to recover copper, gold and other metals.

Reuse before recycling

Appliance condition	Best route
Working, clean, under about five years old	Reuse charity, community furniture project or selling privately
Working but old or inefficient	Usually recycling, as charities often decline older white goods
Faulty but repairable	Repair café or local repairer, if the repair is worth the cost
Broken, damaged or with cooling system faults	Recycling at a licensed WEEE facility

Reuse keeps an appliance in use for longer, which is better than recycling, but only if it is safe and genuinely wanted. Very old fridges and freezers are expensive to run and are normally better recycled.

How to know it was treated properly

Ask your collector which facility your appliance is going to and keep the waste transfer note. A legitimate carrier will be happy to tell you. Appliances that disappear into the scrap trade without paperwork are the ones most likely to be stripped for metal with the gas and foam released.

Why proper treatment matters

The gases in older fridges are the main reason treatment standards exist. CFCs such as R12 in the cooling circuit and CFC-11 in the insulation foam deplete the ozone layer, and both are powerful greenhouse gases, many thousands of times more potent than carbon dioxide. Most of the gas in an old fridge is actually held in the foam rather than the pipes, which is why the foam has to be processed in a sealed system and not simply crushed in the open.

Other appliances matter too. A washing machine or cooker is mostly steel, and recycling steel uses far less energy than making it from ore. Copper in motors and wiring, aluminium in drums and heat exchangers, and precious metals in circuit boards are all worth recovering. When an appliance is dumped or landfilled, those materials are lost and any oils or hazardous components can leak into soil and water.

Captures ozone-depleting and greenhouse gases before they escape
Recovers steel, aluminium and copper for reuse in manufacturing
Removes hazardous components such as capacitors and some plastics
Keeps bulky waste out of landfill
Funds the system through producer responsibility rather than council tax alone