After the Montreal Protocol 25 years ago, came the 3 R’s: Recover, Recycle and Reclaim. The idea was to reuse refrigerant (R-22), the type of gas needed to operate air conditioning units and other industrial machines. For this to work optimally, service technicians need to recover the used gas, bring it to a facility and have the gas “recycled,” so it can be brought back up to purity grade (ARI-700).
However, the EPA has noticed that the amount of gas brought in for recycle has remained stagnant over the years. Clearly it should increase as usage has increased. Several reasons account for this. 1.) Service technicians are reusing the gas without bringing it to the proper facilities to have it recycled (which can damage machines and cause other problems), 2.) Refrigerant gasses remain relatively cheap, and the environmental “stewardship” ideal is easily overlooked by many in the industry, and 3.) Many machines can operate off retrofit HFC’s refrigerants and do not need R-22. However as the supply of R-22 tightens (which is required in certain critical applications) the desire by those in the industry to practice greater conservation should increase.
Industry leaders are confident that this awareness to be more resourceful is near, Senior Vice President of Airgas Refrigerants, Ken Beringer said, “People do not waste what is valuable. If the EPA had more enforcement, and made people accountable for their used product, then the culture would change. Higher pricing should help.”
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