Chlorofluorocarbon Users Are Feeling Pressure to Stop
For years, workers at Johnson Electric in Hauppauge, N.Y., used a solvent called NF-1000 to clean the computer boards that control traffic lights in many Long Island towns. The stuff cleaned like magic, then quickly evaporated--no drying necessary.
But after the state of New York found out that the company was using the solvent, which contains Freon, Johnson President Donald Leslie said he was soon “bombarded with a mountain of paper work.”
Freon is a member of a class of chemicals known as chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, widely thought to be responsible for the depletion of the Earth’s protective ozone layer.
Johnson quickly switched to an alternative that did not contain CFCs but that costs twice as much. “Anything to get rid of that paper work,” he said.
Paper work is one of the many pressures urging metropolitan area businesses to think more about the environment.
President Bush has called for CFC use to be phased out by the year 2000, and prices for CFCs are skyrocketing because of the Montreal Protocol, a 38-nation treaty that limits production to 1986 levels and calls for it to be reduced further by 1998.
Congress is expected next month to tack a 60-cent fee onto each pound of CFC produced. Most of these products now cost 50 cents to $1.60 a pound. The fee, which would be retroactive to July 1, would increase to $1 in January and to $2 in 1991.
“Many of our smaller customers are not going to be able to compete,” said Arthur Dhom, vice president of Pride Solvents of West Babylon, N.Y.
Taken together, industry experts say, these factors spell the end for these “wonder” chemicals.
CFCs, first introduced in Freon by E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co. in the 1930s, are now the force behind an estimated $135-billion worth of business. They fill the coils of refrigerators and car air conditioners and the bubbles in foam packaging. They are the solvents of choice for cleaning circuit boards, electronic components and metal parts of all kinds.
CFCs have had such a broad appeal because they are nontoxic, they do not corrode rubber or plastics, they do not leave a residue, and they evaporate quickly. “If I spilled a drum of Freon, the floor would be dry in 10 minutes,” Dhom said.
That is great for cleaning processes -- but potentially disastrous for life on Earth.
Scientists have pointed to CFCs--as well as to other chemicals--as the cause behind the hole, discovered in the late ‘70s, in the ozone layer over Antarctica. The ozone layer, which is in the stratosphere, protects Earth from much of the sun’s ultraviolet rays, which can cause skin cancer, cataracts and other ailments. (Stratospheric ozone is different from low-level ozone, an industrial by-product and component of smog.)
CFC manufacturers say that they have been searching for alternatives for years. Only recently have CFC users begun to find ways to reduce the amounts evaporating into the atmosphere.
Two weeks ago, General Motors and Nissan announced plans to stop using CFCs by the mid-1990s, and American Telephone & Telegraph and General Electric unveiled plans to curtail their use of them.
Although industries whose profits depend on CFCs will be hurt, “I don’t think many consumers will notice,” said Steve Anderson, branch chief of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Global Change Division.
Refrigerator prices, for example, could rise $20 to $30 if CFC costs triple, said David Doniger, a scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group based in New York.
Sarah Clark, a staff scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund, a New York-based environmental group, adds that suitable substitutes already exist for packaging and that solvent costs represent only 1% of the cost of a computer. “The price to consumers will be a manageable increase, and it’s certainly worth the cost,” Clark said.
Anderson confirms that the EPA intended to make CFCs expensive. Until recently, CFC costs were so low that they were reluctant to spend money to pursue alternatives.
Prices have risen by 50% to 100% since the start of the year in anticipation of lower supplies, Anderson said.
“Now, we hear about great new alternatives every week,” he said. “It seems a lot of companies are finding they would rather be part of the solution than part of the problem.”
Businesses that use CFCs already have begun to feel the pinch. By freezing CFC production at 1986 levels as of July 1, the Montreal Protocol caused a 20% cutback. Dhom of Pride Solvents said customers are already getting less than they request.
