Food Package Industry to Cut Ozone Threat

Makers of plastic foam food containers, facing increasing pressure to stop using chemicals that deplete the earth’s protective ozone layer, announced Tuesday they are converting to safer substitutes.

The action, the most complete phase-out of ozone-destroying chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) by a major industry, follows a decision by E.I. du Pont Nemours & Co. last month to end all production of the compounds. But unlike Du Pont, which gave no timetable for its phase-out, the 15 companies that use the highly destructive CFCs in their containers will sign agreements pledging to convert to safer substitutes by the end of the year.

The products made by these companies include egg cartons and packaging used by fast-food chains. Some of these chains, including McDonald’s, have warned the companies they would no longer buy their packaging unless the compounds were removed.

“The industry obviously doesn’t want to lose these accounts,” said Joseph W. Bow, president of the Foodservice & Packaging Institute, a Washington-based trade association that represents the companies.

Precedent Seen

Environmentalists hailed the agreement as precedent-setting and pledged to lobby other industries to follow suit. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee M. Thomas called the pact “a model of cooperation between industry and the environmental community.”

“It demonstrates the degree of consensus in moving away from the use of CFCs,” Thomas said.

The firms will use a substitute recently marketed by Du Pont and the Allied Corp. that reduces by 95% the product’s ozone-depletion potential. The substitute is a CFC with a hydrogen atom instead of a chlorine atom. The hydrogen makes the compound less stable so it breaks down before it reaches the upper atmosphere.

Concern over ozone depletion has increased since March 15, when an authoritative new report by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration indicated that CFCs are depleting the stratospheric ozone layer twice as fast as previously believed.

Shield for Earth

The ozone layer shields the earth from the sun’s damaging ultraviolet rays. The NASA report showed the ozone layer over the United States reduced by 2.3% since 1969 and depleted by 4% over Australia and New Zealand in the same period. Exposure to ultraviolet rays increases the likelihood of skin cancer, eye damage and has adverse effects on agriculture and fishing.

Every 1% decrease in ozone in the stratosphere is accompanied by a 5% to 6% increase in skin cancers, scientists believe. The ozone depletion over Australia, for example, is expected to trigger a 20% increase in skin cancer there over the next two decades.

In addition, scientists believe the depletion may already be reducing agricultural and fishery production.

The companies that reached the agreement represent about 2% of the CFC used in the United States.

The compounds are widely used in refrigerators, air conditioning and as cleaning agents in the electronic industry. Substitutes for refrigeration are expected to be the hardest to find, said EPA spokesman Chris Rice.

Widespread Use

Between 30% and 50% of fast-food packaging is made with CFCs, according to various sources.

“This is the first user to give up the compound, and I think there is a fairly high level of confidence that this will be a very powerful precedent for other industries,” said Joseph Goffman, an attorney for the Environmental Defense Fund in Washington.

The companies volunteered to sign pledges ending use of the fully halogenated CFCs in a meetings with the EPA, the Environmental Defense Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Friends of the Earth.

“No one was hitting anybody over the head,” said Bow, the industry spokesman. “It was very amiable. These were groups that were supposed to be considered adversaries but really there was no adversary relationship at all. We’re both striving for the same thing.”

Bow said the substitutes will cost slightly more, but “there won’t be any noticeable cost passed on to the consumer.” The new packaging also will look nearly identical to the containers now used, he said.

Growing Concern

Faced with growing alarm about ozone loss, representatives of 46 nations adopted a landmark treaty in Montreal in September that aims for a 50% reduction in the use of CFCs by the end of the century. The treaty calls for a freeze in CFC production at 1986 levels beginning July 1, 1990, followed by a 20% cut in consumption by June 30, 1994 and another 30% reduction by June 30, 1999.

But since that treaty was signed, scientists have learned that the decrease in the ozone is more than twice as large as previously thought, and manufacturers, government officials and researchers now agree that quick correction action is imperative. Although many companies are already searching for CFC substitutes, experts believe it will take at least a decade before significant changes are made.

Kathy Forte, a spokeswoman for Du Pont, said the company expects to have most CFCs phased out by the “end of the century” if nontoxic substitutes and a commercial production process can be developed. Du Pont invented CFCs and its sales amount to about one-fourth the world’s supply.