US city receives fine for leaking refrigerated appliances
[ added 22 July, 2010 ]
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An estimated 4,600 pounds of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) has been released in the atmosphere in Tacoma, US due to a flawed purging process when recovering the refrigerant from several thousand of appliances. The mistake has caused the release of emissions equivalent to those generated by about 530,000 roundtrip commutes between Tacoma and Seattle – an overall distance of about 58 million kilometers.
“Every pound of CFCs that enters the environment is a blow to the Earth’s protective ozone layer and a setback in controlling climate change,” said Dennis McLerran, Regional Administrator for US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 10. “We expect any facilities that handle refrigerants to have sound practices for recovery.”
Penalties and pollution reduction projects
As CFC releases constitutes a violation of the federal Clean Air Act, penalties have been imposed on the city. As a result, the city of Tacoma will pay nearly $225,000 in penalties.
Moreover, in an attempt to make amends for this environmental disruption caused by its refrigerated appliance disposal service, the city of Tacoma will also pay nearly $300,000 for new pollution-reduction projects that will reduce green house gas emissions and particulate matter in the Tacoma area.
Natural refrigerants: the real solution to leaking devices
This type of incidents indicates that the use of chemical refrigerants such as CFCs or their succeeding generation hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) cannot be continued. Leaks of high global warming refrigerants from appliances are a reality. However, there exist alternative refrigerants that have a minimal or zero impact on global warming and the environment if they are accidentally released into the atmosphere. These are natural occurring substances such as carbon dioxide, ammonia and hydrocarbons, refrigerants that are gaining increasing interest worldwide, including in the US.
