Quote Originally Posted by Maanaam View Post
Yeah but the effects of the HFC's and CFC once leaked or escaped from dumped old equipment is a far worse a scenario than the inconvenience of evacuating a 1 sq km area.
The problem is in underdeveloped countries. In most western countries, certainly Australia and Europe There is a high degree of regulation and certainly no dumped equipment. So I dont know where you are getting your facts from. All equipment has to have the refrigerant removed first. In addition there is a register that checks on purchases of HFCs (CFCs are almost non existent in many western countries) and a register of how much has been returned for recycling as well as spot checks on companies to ensure they have all the correct recycling equipment. Also a licence to use HFC refrigerants and another to purchase. Fines are quite horrendous for non compliance. Even in Thailand despite virtually no regulation, companies such as Panasonic use R32 in domestic air conditioners to replace R410a due to R32s lower GWP of 675. It is important to remember that the leak rate of HFCs is not the prime source of CO2 from refrigerants. The main source is the energy usage required to run the system. At the moment refrigerants only represent 2% of Global CO2 equivalent emissions. The concentration on these refrigerants is due to their short atmospheric lifetime which gives a fairly quick benefit when they are removed. Although will do nothing to ameliorate the long term effects caused by the other 98%.