If you look hard enough you might be able to recycle those old appliances, and they will likely be reconditioned and find a good home in a household less privileged than yours, or broken down into their reusable parts and used to help rejuvenate other salvageable units.
Fridges are one of the hardest things to recycle as the licences you need to do so are complicated and expensive. You can ask you local council to collect your fridge which can cost in the region of £25. Unfortunately this cost leads many people to fly-tip which can cause even more harm to the environment.
So what are your choices: There are more and more companies now refurbishing fridges, washing machines etc. They will collect your appliance at much more reasonable rates and in fact if you want to drop it of it can even be for free.
As the credit crunch really starts to hit, consumers have less and less money spare for these items, therefore refurbished items are a great alternative.
One of the options available until recently is to donate the item to a charity. Unfortunately the PC police have been out again and introduced the recent P.A.T. testing law which means if a charity sells or gives away an electrical appliance it has to be P.A.T. tested. This requires an individual/organisation to take a course and buy expensive P.A.T. testing equipment. Bearing in mind we are talking about a charity, most workers are voluntary it therefore does not make economic sense for them to do so.
Search on the internet for fridge recycling companies to do you part.