Word: cfc
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...technical challenge is relatively straightforward. The goal is to find substances and processes that can replace CFC-based systems without doing further harm to the stratosphere -- an endeavor that is well under way. In fact, it may turn out to be easier than anyone expected. Except for medical aerosols, some fire-fighting equipment and certain metal-cleaning applications, there are now effective substitutes for virtually every ozone- depleting chemical. Some cost quite a bit more, and others pose different, if less severe, environmental problems. But in a surprising number of cases, the new processes are actually cheaper and better than...
Replacing CFCs in newly built equipment, however, is only half the job. Virtually every existing refrigerator and air conditioner is a CFC reservoir. The chemicals are not a problem as long as they continue to circulate within an appliance. But if the machine is carelessly drained, junked or damaged, the CFCs can escape to attack the ozone. The real task for those countries that invested heavily in CFCs in the past is to develop systems for recovering and recycling the chemicals they have already used...
...thing. They bear direct responsibility for most of the damage that has been done, and they can best afford the costs attached to switching technologies. But what about the countries of the Second and Third Worlds? Many of them are just beginning to enjoy the comforts of CFC technology, and they cannot easily pay for a changeover...
...sanctions. But there is also grass-roots pressure in some developing countries. In Mexico, for example, consumer complaints persuaded local manufacturers that it was time to begin removing CFCs from aerosol products. The changeover happened so quickly that when one company ran out of labels saying THIS IS A CFC-FREE PRODUCT, store managers rejected the shipment, knowing that many of their customers would leave unlabeled spray cans on the shelf...
...Czechoslovakia and Poland, most households have CFC-based refrigerators and others badly want them. Neither country has put in place a system for recovering the coolants. Says an official at the Ministry of Environmental Protection in Warsaw: "If we are not able to solve the problem of disposal of used bottles, plastic items and batteries, what can we say about the proper disposal of refrigerators...