About 250,000 tonnes of large household appliances (refrigerators and freezers, washing machines and dishwashers, cookers and hoods, air conditioners, televisions etc.) are disposed of in Italy every year.

Correct disposal and processing of large household appliances significantly impacts our surrounding environment because:

‐ we can reduce emissions of climate changing substances (called the greenhouse effect);

- we can reduce emissions of substances that damage the ozone layer (called the ozone hole);

‐ we save energy thanks to recycled raw materials.

If all large household appliances disposed of each year were to be correctly processed and recovered, our energy savings would provide for the consumption of a city of 40,000 inhabitants, CO2 emissions would drop by as much as 3.5 million tonnes, and the quantity of substances that damage the ozone layer would fall by 40%.

Thanks to the modern technological resources of reclamation systems, 80% of the materials of which household appliances are made can be recovered for further use in many sectors of industry. Just one refrigerator yields as much as 28 kg of iron, 6 kg of plastic and more than 3 kg of copper and aluminium: all household appliances are ‘mines’ from which we can extract raw materials.

Statistical data source: ECODOM – Consorzio Italiano Recupero e Riciclaggio Elettrodomestici (Italian consortium for recovery and recycling of household appliances)