Kevin Jones, Flintshire county council

The regulations mean that the fridges cannot be dumped, or even recycled, in Britain.

Flintshire county council is expecting to receive between three and five thousand fridges over the next year.

To combat the problem, it has just opened a warehouse in which to store the fridges, but this warehouse is expected to be full by March.

Kevin Jones, of Flintshire County Council has warned of a potential "fridge mountain".

"One has to bear in mind that the cost of these operations will, especially in the short-term, fall on the local ratepayer," he added.

Limited resources

Currently, there are five centres that are licenced to remove CFCs from old fridges - the nearest is in Holland.

The insulating foam of old fridges, containing the harmful gases, must be removed before the fridges can be scrapped.

It is expected that nearly 2.5m fridges will need to be stored across Britain next year.

On Wednesday, the government announced it would be giving an extra �6m to help councils dispose of old fridges.

The funding announced is to help councils to keep old fridges in storage.