What Happens After We Collect Your Fridge
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Here's exactly what happens to a fridge after we collect it from the kerbside — because "we recycle it" is a claim, and the process is the thing that makes it true or not.
Step 1: It leaves intact
This is the first thing that distinguishes proper handling from bad handling, and it happens before anything technical.
A fridge must not be crushed, tipped or compacted at collection. A general waste truck with a compactor would rupture the sealed circuit and release the entire refrigerant charge in one go — which is exactly what happens when fridges are collected as part of a mixed load.
So it goes on the truck whole, upright, and stays that way.
Step 2: Licensed refrigerant recovery
The critical step. A licensed handler taps the sealed system and recovers the refrigerant into a recovery cylinder using a dedicated machine.
What's in there depends on the fridge's age:
- Pre-1990s units often hold CFCs — ozone-depleting, phased out under the Montreal Protocol
- 1990s to 2000s units typically hold HFCs such as R134a, with a global warming potential well over a thousand times that of carbon dioxide
- Modern units mostly use hydrocarbon refrigerant with negligible warming potential, but which is flammable and needs careful handling
Recovered gas is either reclaimed for reuse or destroyed. It is not vented. More on refrigerants.
Step 3: Compressor oil drained
The compressor contains lubricating oil, and that oil has absorbed refrigerant over the appliance's life. It's drained and handled as a separate stream rather than going into the shredder.
Step 4: Components removed
Glass shelves, plastic drawers, door seals and any electronics come off. Some can be recycled through their own streams; others can't, and are separated so they don't contaminate the metal.
Step 5: The insulation foam
The part almost nobody knows about. The foam inside the walls and door of an older fridge was blown using the same class of gases as the refrigerant, and it holds them for the appliance's life.
Well-equipped facilities process the foam separately to capture those blowing agents. A fridge crushed in an open yard releases both the circuit charge and the foam gases — which is why "someone took the fridge away" isn't the same as "the fridge was recycled".
Step 6: Shredding and separation
Only now does the shell get shredded. The fragments are then separated:
- Magnets pull out the steel — the largest fraction by weight
- Eddy current separators use induced magnetic fields to eject non-ferrous metals: copper from the motor windings and tubing, aluminium from various components
- Density and air separation removes the remaining plastics
Step 7: Back into the supply chain
Steel goes to mills. Recycling steel uses dramatically less energy than producing it from iron ore, and steel can be recycled indefinitely without quality loss. Copper and aluminium go back into their own supply chains, both with large energy savings over primary production.
Why the order matters so much
Every step protects the ones after it. Skip the degassing and you release the refrigerant, contaminate the metal stream, and lose the ability to reclaim the gas. Skip the oil draining and you contaminate the shredder residue.
It's a sequence, not a menu — which is the real difference between a fridge that was recycled and a fridge that was just taken away.
What you can do
- Don't put it on the kerb unbooked — aside from being illegal dumping, an unbooked fridge may not reach a facility that degasses it
- Don't let anyone crush it on site
- Don't cut the pipes to "empty it" — that's the release the whole system exists to prevent
- Ask whoever collects it what happens next. A straight answer is a good sign.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need to arrange degassing myself?
No. It's handled as part of the collection.
Does a small bar fridge go through the same process?
Yes — size changes the quantity of gas, not the requirement. More on small units.
Can the refrigerant be reused?
Often yes — recovered gas can be reclaimed and reused, which is better than destroying it.
How much of a fridge gets recycled?
The metal fraction — steel, copper, aluminium — is the bulk of the unit by weight and is recovered at high rates. Plastics are the harder part.
Book a fridge pickup
Collection is kerbside only. Please arrange for your items to be outside at the kerbside before pickup. Collections run Monday to Friday, 6am–4pm.
$80 for a small–medium unit, $150 for a large one, degassed under licence, metal recovered.