How Do You Patch a Hole in the Sky That Could Be as Big as Alaska?

By Philip Elmer-DeWitt

Think for a moment about the world's 1 billion refrigerators and its hundreds of millions of air conditioners. Picture mountains of foam insulation, seat cushions, furniture stuffing and carpet padding. Imagine streams of cleaning fluids, rivers of industrial solvents, wafting clouds of aerosol spray.

Ridding the planet of the millions of tons of ozone-depleting chemicals contained in that vision is not just a big job; it may be the biggest job the nations of the world have ever taken on. In the 60 years since Du Pont began marketing the miracle refrigerant it called Freon, chlorofluorocarbons have worked their way deep into the machinery of what much of the world thinks of as modern life -- air-conditioned homes and offices, climate-controlled shopping malls, refrigerated grocery stores, squeaky-clean computer chips. Extricating the planet from the chemical burden of that high-tech life-style -- for both those who enjoy it and those who aspire to it -- will require not just technical ingenuity but extraordinary diplomatic skill.

The 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 the old.

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.

The diplomatic challenge is trickier. For the U.S., Europe and other industrialized regions to do right by the stratosphere is one 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.

The progress made so far is encouraging. According to the U.N. Environment Program, which oversees the Montreal Protocol, there has been a 40% drop in CFC consumption since 1986, largely because of accelerated phaseouts in industrialized countries. There has been a similar reduction in the halons -- the ozone-hostile chemicals used in fire fighting. In 1990 the Montreal Protocol was broadened to include two potent industrial solvents not covered in the original agreement: methyl chloroform and carbon tetrachloride. U.N. officials are now convinced that the developed world will have stopped making the most prevalent kinds of ozone depleters by 1995 or 1997, depending on the particular substance, and that developing countries may be able to catch up in five to eight more years -- not the 10 extra years once anticipated.

Some of the countries that resisted CFC controls at first are taking the lead today -- sometimes to their own surprise. Germany, which was dragged by its heels to the initial Montreal meeting, became the first country to establish a system for recycling CFCs from discarded refrigerators. Sweden, Switzerland and the Netherlands are among other countries working on their own refrigerant-recycling programs. Japan, a major consumer of CFC solvents for electronics manufacturing, was leery of changes that might raise the cost of doing business. Now Matsushita, NEC and Sony all have programs to eliminate the use of CFCs by 1995, five years in advance of the protocol deadline.

While there has been some backpedaling at the highest levels of the Bush Administration, U.S. corporations are taking the initiative in getting rid of their ozone-reducing chemicals. The Hughes Corp. now uses a chemical derived from lemon juice (yes, lemon juice) instead of CFCs in its weapons- manufacturing program. Northern Telecom, a Canadian firm that does most of its business in the U.S., has developed soldering processes that do not need cleaning and has thus become the first major North American company to end reliance on CFCs throughout its operations. "Business is moving faster than the laws require," says Stephen Andersen, an EPA official who co-chairs a Montreal Protocol assessment panel. "They're finding they can save money and improve performance."

One uniquely American problem -- the 82 million U.S. cars equipped with air conditioners -- inspired an enterprising solution. Some automobile mechanics found a patented but uncommercialized machine that enables repair shops to recycle CFC-12 from auto air conditioners rather than vent it into the air. Then they persuaded the Big Three U.S. automakers to require company-owned service centers to install the new device. As a result, 160,000 of these machines had been sold as of Jan. 1. "The quicker we get out of these CFCs, the better off we're going to be," says Simon Oulouhojian, a service-station owner in Upper Darby, Pa. "We've got kids too."

Mexico and Thailand have announced that they would like to phase out CFCs on the same timetable as the developed nations. One factor spurring them on may be the likelihood that exports not meeting strict ozone-friendly standards could soon face international 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.

The countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union have tougher problems. Faced with a collapsing economy, rising crime and open fighting among its members, the new Commonwealth of Independent States has pushed environmental issues far down on its list of priorities. The Russian people show no special interest in the ozone problem. Whatever aerosol cans and foam products make it to market in Moscow these days are immediately snapped up by buyers who either do not know about CFCs or do not particularly care.

In 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?"

The task is also daunting in the rapidly developing countries of China and India. Together they now contribute 3% of the world's burden of ozone- depleting chemicals, but their potential demand for CFC products is so great that without the cooperation of both countries, any plan to heal the ozone hole is destined to fail. China's 800 million consumers, encouraged by more than 10 years of economic reform, are ravenous for luxury items such as aerosol cosmetics and air conditioners, and Chinese industry cannot make them fast enough. In the early 1980s China produced 500,000 refrigerators a year; now it churns out some 8 million annually. The Chinese environmental protection agency says it wants the country to switch to non-CFC technologies, but does not have the authority to make industry do so.

India, which in the early 1970s invested heavily in the purchase of Western refrigeration technology, today not only manufactures its own refrigerators but exports CFC compressors. Says Ashish Kothari of Kalpavriksh, India's best- known environmental group: "Our development strategies cannot be sacrificed for the destruction of the environment caused by the West." And then there is the cost of changing technologies. "India recognizes the threat to the environment and the necessity for a global burden sharing to control it," says Maneka Gandhi, former Minister of the Environment, who represented India at the Montreal Protocol negotiations. "But is it fair that the industrialized countries who are responsible for the ozone depletion should arm-twist the poorer nations into bearing the cost of their mistakes?"

Both India and China refused to sign the original Montreal Protocol, but they were placated by the creation in 1990 of a special $240 million fund, financed by the developed countries, to help developing nations switch to CFC- free technologies. China signed the revised protocol last year, and India now expects to follow suit. The U.S. initially balked at the idea of ozone- linked foreign aid but agreed to put up 25% of the money after language was added to the agreement stipulating that American willingness to help countries pay for CFC phaseouts would not be taken as a precedent in solving other environmental problems.

Europe, Japan and the U.S. still need to set up a large, separate fund to help the former Soviet Union and other East European countries wean themselves from CFCs. That will be difficult to do during hard economic times. But what is the alternative? What price is too high to protect the irreplaceable atmosphere shared by East and West, by South and North?

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CAPTION: CFC Offenders and Substitutes

With reporting by Meenakshi Ganguly/New Delhi, Clive Mutiso/Nairobi and Dick Thompson/Washington