VC Star
By David Goldstein
The sketchiest home improvement purchase I ever made involved a refrigerator. My wife and I wanted to upgrade, but we did not want to spend much since we already had a decent refrigerator and the upgrade seemed like an unnecessary luxury.
Seemingly, the answer came on Facebook Marketplace. Shopping for a used, high-end refrigerator, we noticed five listings by the same individual. We wondered, “Who has that many refrigerators?”
We arranged to see the refrigerator we wanted, drove to the address the lister gave us, and it turned out to be a father-and-son team running a refrigerator repair and resale business out of their garage in Oxnard. Against our better judgement, we bought the refrigerator of our dreams and arranged for delivery.
Everything started out well. When the father and son delivered it, they reduced the price in exchange for taking our old refrigerator. Even better, during their informal 60 day “warranty period” — documented only with handshake — they came back to our home and completed a repair, charging only for the parts.
Two subsequent minor repairs over the next eight years were more expensive, and we lived with a door flap that had to be engaged with one hand while opening or closing the refrigerator door with the other hand. So a few months ago, when we replaced that unit, we bought our new one from a real retail store.
This time, I felt less guilty about the wastefulness of replacing an old refrigerator because I used the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s “flip your fridge” calculator at energystar.gov. The calculator determines how much an old refrigerator costs in energy, compared to a new Energy Star unit, assuming the same size and features.
The company that sold us the new refrigerator took our old one at no cost, but not everyone has the opportunity to get rid of an old refrigerator so easily. Fortunately, there are many other options for refrigerator recycling.
Most economical is to sell your old refrigerator on Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist or another online portal.
If it is not working, haul your old refrigerator to a scrap metal recycler. Call first to find out if the Freon must first be drained. For example, Standard Industries in Saticoy accepts only drained units and pays $50 per ton. SA recycling in Oxnard pays $40 per ton but accepts units that have not been drained. A refrigerator weighs about 200 pounds, so the payment is about $4.
Gold Coast Recycling in Ventura accepts refrigerators, along with electronic waste, up to half a ton, free from EJ Harrison customers who show both a Harrison bill and identification. The company charges $36 to accept these items from others.
Refrigerators dropped off at WM’s Simi Valley Landfill and Recycling Center incur a $25 fee. However, WM residential customers in areas like Simi Valley or Moorpark can take advantage of a free bulky item pick-up to dispose of unwanted refrigerators at the curb.
Oxnard’s Del Norte Recycling and Transfer Station charges $15 per appliance and adds a Freon extraction fee of $30 to $35 for refrigerators, depending on size. Alternatively, Oxnard residents can schedule pickup of up to five bulky items for $45 plus Freon extraction fees.
Harrison and Athens residential customers have free bulky item pickup programs which include refrigerators and do not require their residential customers to separately contract for Freon extraction.
Of course, apartment dwellers, commercial accounts and others, including those who have already used their free annual bulky item collection, do not qualify for the free program. They can still call for a collection from these haulers, but at a cost. Harrison, for example, charges $30 per collection, plus a Freon extraction charge.
You can hire workers to take a refrigerator from your kitchen through apps such as BuddyTruck, Lugg or TaskRabbit or by contacting companies such as Haul4Me.com, 1800GotJunk or u-call-we-haul.
David Goldstein, an environmental resource analyst with the Ventura County Public Works Agency, can be reached at 805-658-4312 or david.goldstein@ventura.org.
