It’s winter and everyone’s scrambling to make it a profitable holiday season. It’s understandable if ensuring that your old refrigerants and refrigerant cylinders are cleaned is low on your list of priorities, but that might be an oversight. If you’ve got any old cylinders lying around, you could be leaving your money out in the cold! Smart business owners know it’s important to save money wherever they can – and Refrigerant Services LLC is here to help you achieve that. Our Clean Exchange Program is tailor-made for this exactly this. Let’s take a look at how we can help make your holiday season even better this year:
Chlorofluorocarbons, more commonly known as CFCs, are organic compounds made up of combinations of the elements chlorine, fluorine and carbon. Freon, one of the more commonly known types, is the DuPont brand name for CFCs and other related compounds. There are dozens of other brand names for them, such as Kaltron, Frigedohn, etc. CFCs were originally developed back in the 1930s as a safe, non-toxic and non-flammable alternative to other substances such as ammonia, chloromethane and sulfur dioxide for the purpose of refrigeration and spray can propellants. They’re very effective – so effective that use of them skyrocketed all the way until 1994, when production of new supplies of CFCs ceased in most countries. There are some very limited applications where CFCs must still be used, such as aircraft fire suppression systems, but they are very rare and very specialized. Hydrofluorocarbons, also known as HCFCs, are also commonly referred to when talking about CFCs. Even though they are technically different, they’re composed of mostly the same elements and used in the same applications.
One of the things that makes them similar is that they both contain chlorine. There isn’t much chlorine that exists in our atmosphere naturally, and it turns out that CFCs and similar compounds are incredibly effective at bringing chlorine to the upper stratosphere and into contact with the ozone layer. UV or ultraviolet radiation at this layer of the atmosphere breaks down CFCs, releasing the chlorine atoms they contain. The chlorine atoms are now free to interact with ozone molecules. The chlorine atom and one of the oxygen atoms of ozone combine, leaving behind diatomic oxygen. Other free oxygen atoms can then come into contact with this chlorine-oxygen compound, whereupon the two oxygen atoms combine to form molecular oxygen and the chlorine is then free to destroy more ozone molecules. This can go on a couple of thousand times – the EPA estimates that one single atom of chlorine can destroy as many as 100,000 molecules of ozone. Why is this important? Molecular oxygen, as opposed to ozone molecules, is ineffective at blocking UV rays from reaching the surface of the Earth. Less ozone means more high-energy UV-B radiation gets through, increasing the incidence of skin cancer in humans and genetic damage for many other organisms. As a result of studies undertaken by scientists during the 1970s, the Montreal Protocol was adopted as a framework for international cooperation regarding CFC control based on the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer.
What do you need to do now?
Most CFCs have already been completely abolished. According to the Montreal Protocol, the HCFCs we previously mentioned are to be phased out by 2020. The most widely used is HCFC-22, also known as R-22. In order to be compliant with current standards for dealing with CFCs and HCFCs, the proper capture, recycling and disposal of harmful refrigerants is of paramount importance. Risk of contamination and other health hazards are very high when dealing with R-22. Transitioning from R-22 to more environmentally friendly refrigerants can be costly – you’ll probably need to replace all that refrigerant since your needs won’t have changed (almost every business needs an HVAC system, after all). This is where Refrigerant Services LLC comes in. We take pride in being an EPA-certified team specializing in the recovery of used, contaminated, or burnt refrigerants, and all of our equipment is of the highest industry standard. We can recover used, contaminated or even burnt refrigerants while following EPA protocols – and we’ll even pay you for it.
The Refrigerant Services LLC Buy Back Program
Our Buy Back program gives you three options. First of all, we can give you good-as-new refrigerants in return for used, contaminated, or burnt refrigerants. Second, we can buy your old refrigerant at competitive rates. Lastly, we can also exchange your used refrigerants for EPA-compliant and environmentally safe refrigerants. We can do all this at a convenient time for you so that your business incurs the least downtime possible. After the work is done, we’ll even inspect the surrounding area for refrigerant leakage or waste to ensure that your workplace is safe from harmful toxins. You get a new revenue stream from your old refrigerants and you take a step toward a more eco-friendly environment. It’s a win-win.
Leave the job to us if you want quick, convenient, and high-quality service so you can get the highest value for your refrigerants. We can do on-site recovery, consolidation and pick-up. If you want to learn more about how we can help, pick up the phone and give us a call at 844-PURECFC (787-3232) or use our online form for you to fill out and someone will get back to you as soon as possible.
