Ecobreves – BRAZIL: Recycling Vehicle Air Conditioners

By IPS Correspondents and - - Reprint | | Print |

SAO PAULO, Oct 10 2005 (IPS) - By the end of the year the Brazilian government will deliver most of the 335 machines used for recycling the gases used in the air conditioning units of cars, trucks and other vehicles. The gases will be collected, recycled by the machines, and reinjected, all within a few minutes, into the units. The effort is part of the Brazilian Program for the Elimination of Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which are a leading culprit in the destruction of the Earth's stratospheric ozone layer.

“The first machines were delivered in September to Sao Paulo, the state where there is highest consumption,” Marcio Marques Perrut told Tierramérica. He is the director of the ozone unit at the Ministry of Environment, and noted that they are working with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).

Since CFC production was eliminated in Brazil in 1999, consumption and use of those gases has fallen 82.8 percent.