Llyr Gruffydd MS Member of the Senedd for North Wales

Recently Llyr Gruffydd MS welcomed the news that Enfinium, the energy-from-waste operator, awarded the Ruthin Repair Café, located in Denbighshire, £1,500 of funding to help it to repair fixable goods, reduce unnecessary household waste, and save local families money.

Ruthin Repair Café, a community based not-for-profit, has been repairing household goods for local residents since February 2020. Running once a month, its team of 25 volunteers have helped fix 963 items to date across 31 Repair Café events. The most common repairs are electricals, especially toasters and vacuum cleaners, followed by sewing repairs, such as soft toys and clothes.

The grant funding announced today will cover the running costs, including room hire and consumables, and enable training for our volunteers to develop their skills in areas such as first aid training, tool sharpening and PAT safety-testing certification, which is critical for electrical item repairs.

Every item repaired saves a family from the expense of replacing it, reduces the amount of waste sent to climate-damaging landfill and reduces carbon emissions. For example, maintaining a single television for an additional 7 years has been found to save the equivalent of 657kg CO₂.

In March 2024, enfinium launched its £60,000 ‘Repair Café Support Fund’, set up to support cafés within a 30 mile radius of one of enfinium’s facilities in Kent, North Wales, West Yorkshire or the West Midlands. Eligible Repair Cafés can apply for funding of up to £1,500 per annum before the 31 May deadline.   

If you would like to learn more about the Repair Cafés Support Fund, or apply for funding, please visit the project website Repair Café or email [email protected].

Mike Maudsley, CEO of enfinium, said: “Repairing broken items is a critical part of reducing the amount of waste we produce. In turn, this leads to lower consumption, lower carbon emissions and less waste ending up in landfill. This is why we are delighted to be awarding Ruthin’s Repair Café with funding today, which has been helping local families to reduce waste and save money since 2020.”    

Anne Lewis, Ruthin Repair Café Organiser, said: “We are thrilled to have been awarded this funding from enfinium. The funds will enable us to continue to help support the local residents of Ruthin, repair their broken items, and provide training to our fantastic team of volunteers.”

Llyr Gruffydd MS commented: “I’m delighted that Ruthin repair café has received this funding from enfinium. It will enable volunteers to ensure that items that would otherwise end up in landfill are able to be recycled, reused and repurposed. It’s a simple but wonderfully effective idea that benefits the environment and also saves people money at a time when the cost-of-living crisis is a very real problem for so many families. I would urge any other repair cafes that are within 30 miles of the Parc Adfer facility on Deeside to apply for funding from enfinium.”