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About Greener Orkney’s Community Fridges
What are Community Fridges?
Community Fridges are a platform for sharing surplus food within a community to reduce the amount of food entering waste streams. There are over 100 community fridges across the UK with each fridge sharing one to four tonnes of food per month. Each year these community fridges redistribute 975 tonnes of food surplus (equivalent to 1.9 million meals) and benefit up to 77,500 people. Greener Orkney’s two Community Fridges are part of the national Community Fridge Network.
How do Community Fridges work?
The idea behind a Community Fridge is simple – any available items can be taken by anyone. As well as food sharing and food waste reduction, Community Fridges give people opportunities to contribute through volunteering, learning new skills and sharing their existing skills.
Greener Orkney’s involvement
Greener Orkney was pleased to join a project launched by the Co-Op and Hubbub which aimed to redistribute 6.8 million meals a year. We were awarded a grant by the Co-Op of £4,000 towards the initial setup costs of the first Community Fridge, in Kirkwall. This was followed by a second Fridge, in Stromness. We also operated a third Fridge in Dounby between 2022 and 2023, located within the Community School.
When and where are the Community Fridges?
| Day | Kirkwall Community Fridge 26 Bridge Street Kirkwall KW15 1HR | Stromness Community Fridge 116 Victoria Street Stromness KW16 3BU |
|---|---|---|
Monday | 8:30pm – 9:00pm | 8:30pm – 9:00pm |
Tuesday | 8:30pm – 9:00pm | 8:30pm – 9:00pm |
| Wednesday | 8:30pm – 9:00pm | 12:00midday – 1:30pm 8:30pm – 9:00pm |
| Thursday | 12:00midday – 1:00pm 8:30pm – 9:00pm | 12:00midday – 1:30pm 8:30pm – 9:00pm |
| Friday | 8:30pm – 9:00pm | 12:00midday – 1:30pm 8:30pm – 9:00pm |
| Saturday | 12:00midday – 2:00pm | 12:00midday – 1:30pm 8:30pm – 9:00pm |
| Sunday | Closed | 8:30pm – 9:00pm |
For the latest information about what food is available, or last-minute changes to opening times, please check the dedicated Community Fridge Facebook page which is regularly updated by our volunteers.
Greener Orkney Community Fridges’ impact
We have over 30 active volunteers who open and close the Community Fridges, collect food from suppliers and ensure the cleanliness of the Community Fridge environment.
| 2022-2025 Total amount of food collected by the Community Fridges: | 107,622kg | 256,243 equivalent meals |
For a full breakdown of historical data across our Community Fridges, please click here for a spreadsheet of information.
Volunteer at Greener Orkney Community Fridges
If you’d like to volunteer at one of Greener Orkney’s Community Fridges we’d love to hear from you. We’ve created a list of Frequently Asked Questions about volunteering at our Community Fridges to help you understand what’s involved.
If you think it’s something you’d like to get involved with, please email us at communityfridges@greenerorkney.org.uk – it is really helpful if you can tell us whether you’d like to volunteer in Stromness or Kirkwall, whether you have particular days you might be available, and how often you are looking to volunteer (once a month, once a week, more than once a week, something else…). We’ll get back to you as soon as we can.
Contact Greener Orkney Community Fridges
Visit: www.facebook.com/greenerorkneycommunityfridge
Email: communityfridges@greenerorkney.org.uk
Our supporters
We are extremely grateful to the following organisations for their support of the Community Fridges:
