Refrigerator recycling program ends in Austin after 11 years

35,000 inefficient units collected in effort, city says.

Declaring victory in a years-long effort to get antiquated, energy-guzzling refrigerators out of Austin homes, Austin Energy announced Thursday that it has ended a recycling program targeting the appliances.

Officials at the city-owned utility said that over the course of the recycling program’s 11 years, more than 35,000 inefficient refrigerators and freezers were collected from customers.

Older, inefficient units use as much as three times the electricity used by a new appliance.

The recycled refrigerators “will never waste a single kilowatt-hour of electricity again,” Debbie Kimberly, the utility’s vice-president of customer energy solutions, said in a news release.

“Our customers have also recycled these appliances responsibly by not filling up our landfills or allowing their ozone-depleting refrigerants to be released into the air,” she said.

With federal rules forcing manufacturers over the past two decades to increase refrigerator and freezer efficiency, the utility said its goal was to remove pre-1993 models.

A 2013 refrigerator uses about half as much electricity as a 1990 model, according to data from the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers.

“We were seeing fewer and fewer of them as the years went on,” Kimberly said. “The program worked.”

Austin Energy started the program in 2005 and offered a $50 rebate for old but working appliances.

An Austin Energy contractor picked up the appliance and recycled 98 percent of the parts and materials.

Much of the program’s cost was related to the disposal of chlorofluorocarbons, which were used for decades as a component in refrigerators and, if released into the atmosphere, can harm the ozone layer.

They are also among the greenhouse gases associated with global warming.

The program had cost the city about $140 per refrigerator recycled, with roughly $90 going to the picking up, dismantling and processing of the appliances as well as administrative costs and profit for the contractors.

“This program reflected the values of our customers and our community,” Kimberly said. “Our customers have made a lasting, positive change that will benefit this community for many years to come.”

Paul Robbins, editor of the Austin Environmental Directory, said the decision to end the program made sense from an energy-savings perspective. But, he added, he was concerned about the responsible disposal of refrigerants in the future.