THE fridges may have gone, but now a new potential waste mountain is threatening to spoil North Yorkshire's picturesque countryside.

For hot on the heels of the thousands of fridges recently shipped to Teesside, a backlog of televisions, microwaves and videos is appearing in their place.

But residents fearing another electronic pile-up should not be concerned, because the unwanted equipment is already being dealt with.

North Yorkshire waste giant Yorwaste, which is responsible for managing household and commercial waste in York and North Yorkshire, is making plans to deal with the used sets.

It has already come to the rescue once, shipping the 29,000 obsolete fridges and freezers in storage, to Billingham, in Stockton-on-Tees.

Now it is to get to grips with waste electrical and electronic equipment - more than two years before new European guidelines come into force.

Those rules mean that Britain will have to recover and recycle three quarters of its waste electrical and electronic equipment by the end of 2005.

Although the legislation - the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive - is not applicable for another 24 months, Yorwaste is already gearing up to divert the equipment from its landfill sites.

Two dedicated containers are being put aside for people to dump their old electrical and electronic equipment at Yorwaste's waste recycling centres at Foss Islands, in York, and Yafforth, near Northallerton.

The containers will be for a company called DBS, which is carrying out a project funded by Yorwaste's environmental body, Yorventure, looking into the recycling and recovery of the equipment.

At the moment all equipment that can be recycled, such as glass, plastic and metal is being removed by hand at the DBS site in Hessay, near York, but eventually it is hoped that a facility will be built which can safely shred bulk materials. The facility will be similar to the new fridge de-manufacturing plant in Billingham.

Yorwaste recycling manager John Miller said: "It is still early days yet, but this Yorventure-funded scheme, which is the first of its kind in the region, will hopefully result in our finding a more sustainable solution of dealing with old electrical and electronic equipment."

Previously, items such as old televisions and computers that could not be repaired were disposed of in Yorwaste's landfill sites across North Yorkshire.

Updated: 11:50 Friday, January 03, 2003