Oregon Public Broadcasting

A new program is underway in Oregon to encourage people to recycle their old refrigerators.  You can even have your old ‘fridge picked up and hauled away -- and you’ll get $30 for it.  Pete Springer reports.

The old refrigerators will end up at a warehouse in Northeast Portland.

Workers at JACO Environmental then use pumps to remove harmful chemicals.

Other workers chip off insulating foam.

Michael Dunham is the director of JACO.  He shows a stack of old refrigerators that have been cut apart.

Michael Dunham: “And then we stack all of those and the doors in these 40-foot roll offs and they go right to a metal recycler where they are shredded and then turned into other products.  Typically the metal from a refrigerator is made into construction rebar.” 

Dunham says the average refrigerator has twenty-five pounds of plastic, three types of metals, and ten pounds of polyurethane foam.

He says his company is able to recycle 95 percent of an old refrigerator.

The only parts that can’t be recycled are the fiber insulation and the rubber gaskets with magnetic strips.

The Energy Trust of Oregon is sponsoring the recycling program.  Energy Trust is a non-profit funded by utility bill surcharges.

Its goal is to help Oregonians conserve energy.

Kendal Youngblood with the Energy Trust says many older refrigerators consume twice as much power as newer models.  And while it might be tempting to just give away your old fridge, she cautions against that.

Kendal Youngblood: “A lot of times people put their old fridge out on the curb and someone comes by and picks it up, well, you know that person, while they got a free fridge, they’re going to be paying for energy use and it doesn’t help Oregon if those stay in the market place.  So this is a way to get them out of the market, and to get them properly handled and recycled.”

The Energy Trust refrigerator recycling program is only for PGE and Pacific Power customers.  The fridge has to be in working condition.

Energy Trust site on fridge recycling