Freon, one of the Ozone layer destroying gasses.
This needs to be put in context. The peak of ozone depelting CFC's was in
the mid 80's, when R12 was used in all domestic and automotive refrigerators
worldwide. In addition, other CFC's were used as degreasing solvents in the
electronics industry (and others) in truly huge quantities (Freon TF). In
total the global annual production of ozone depeting CFC's was the high
hundred thousand tons during the decade before the Montreal Protocol (and
later Kyoto agreement).
Production of these materials is now down to truly tiny quantities - a few
hundred tons per annum - largely for scientific purposes (such as
spectroscopic applications) and very expensive and paperwork laden.
In any event, the quantity of the rather specialised freon used in P6015
probes was entirely insignificant as compared with R12 and TF.
Now that I'm started, it is kind of like the elimination of mercury
batteries. Sure, in general mercury in batteries was a bad idea since it is
leached out in landfills - but it means that the tiny market for replacement
mercury cells for our Tek gear were likewise banned. Also, the entirely
irresponsible banning of lead in solder - in which form the lead is not
leachable and poses no environmental hazard. This is triply nonsensical
when cadmium (a far more poisonous element, easily leachable) is still
allowed in NiCd batteries, produced in the billions per annum, and lead is
still used by the megaton globally in automotive batteries!
Heaven save us from the thought police bureaucrats.
<rant mode> = off
Craig
