Cameras descend on Telford factory as BBC crew hits town
Bosses at a factory on a busy Telford industrial estate say seeing the plant beamed across the nation in a BBC documentary was a "fantastic experience".
Halesfield-based electricals retailer AO welcomed the BBC cameras into its Telford fridge recycling plant on this week's episode of documentary show Inside the Factory.
In the show, presenters Paddy McGuinness and Cherry Healey hit factory floors across Britain for a snoop around their supersized production lines in a bid to determine how some of the country's major industries tick over.
The latest episode saw a visit to the state-of-the-art facility, which the company says is one of the biggest of its kind in Europe, and learned how AO gives over half-a-million old fridges a new lease of life each year.
Operations manager Darren Baden-Smith introduced her to Bertha - AO’s huge fridge crushing machine, which weighs 80 tonnes and can ‘eat’ up to 100 fridges per hour.
Group recycling director Rob Sant then gave Cherry a guided tour of the plastics processing plant, which uses cutting-edge technology to sort and refine fridge plastic, so that it can be turned into new products.
Meanwhile, director of commercial Dave Ware explained why fridge compressors need to be removed and disposed of in an environmentally responsible way, to ensure that dangerous gases don’t go into the atmosphere.
Elsewhere in the episode, Paddy McGuinness visited a factory in Northern Ireland to learn how they make more than half a million sausage rolls every day and historian Ruth Goodman revealed the interesting connection between sausage skin and Zeppelin airships of the First World War.
Rob Sant said: “It was an absolute pleasure to welcome Cherry and the Inside the Factory team to Telford so they could see Bertha in action and learn more about how we turn customers’ old fridges into brand new products.
“Seeing the plant on prime-time TV, on such a beloved series, is a fantastic experience and a testament to the brilliant work our AOers put in every day.”
The episode is now available to watch on BBC iPlayer. It will also be repeated on BBC Two, at 2.30pm on Sunday, February 9.
