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Read this essay to learn about the smuggling of CFC which is an ozone depleting substance.
The gases, mainly chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, are used in air conditioning and refrigerators. Scientists say their continued use – particularly in populous developing counties—could undo efforts to replenish the ozone layer under the 1987 Montreal Protocol. The treaty, ratified by more than 170 countries, requires that the most harmful ozone-depleting gases, such as CFCs, be phased out from production and use in developing countries by 2010.
Industrialized nations already stopped using them in 1996, but companies there are still allowed to produce a limited quantity for medicinal use and for supplying the basic needs of developing nations. But, the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), a nonprofit organization based in London and Washington, says a multimillion dollar parallel market is growing fast in poorer, tropical countries where old equipment have yet to be switched over to cleaner chemicals. The illicit gases are also attractive because they are cheaper than less destructive gases.
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Delegates from 108 countries, representing governments, United Nations agencies and international organizations met in Sri Lanka last year to discuss ways to combat the problem. The meeting agreed to focus on implementing existing commitments rather than negotiating new rules. Under the Montreal treaty, developing countries receive hundreds of millions of dollars in World Bank funds to phase out CFC use.
This would allow the hole in the ozone layer over the South Pole— currently estimated at 9.6 million sq. miles—to gradually repair it. The hole allows large amounts of harmful ultraviolet radiation to reach the earth’s surface, increasing the incidence of skin cancer and eye cataracts, reducing farm yields and harming fish stocks.
Refrigerator manufacturers in developing nations from Brazil to Egypt are replacing CFCs with less harmful chemicals. But illicit trafficking in ozone-depleting substances is estimated to total 20,000 tonnes yearly, the Environmental Investigation Agency says. The group expected about 1,000 tonnes of such substances, mainly CFC gas, to be smuggled into India in 2001. Brought in from neighboring Nepal and Bangladesh in canisters hidden in food sacks or slung under rickshaws, the gas is sold mainly to small-scale businesses at Rs. 200 a canister, two-thirds the price of safer gases.
Industrialized nations have updated their cooling equipment, leaving poorer, developing nations as the main buyers in the parallel market. From producing 3, 50,000 tonnes of ozone-depleting substances a year in the late 1980s, European manufacturers produced just 35,000 tonnes past year, according to industry estimates.
The illegal trade or smuggling of CFCs is not a new phenomenon, and this act was started from developed countries itself. During September 2001, Japan Police had arrested two men and were seeking another for smuggling a banned type of Chlorofluorocarbon in Japan.
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Investigations showed the three falsely filed an import application for a CFC substitute that is allowed, but smuggled in about 36,000 cans of banned CFC 12 instead. Authorities said the CGC cans, each weighing 310 grams, arrived from China. These three are also believed to have smuggled into Japan and sold about 3, 50,000 cans of CFC 12 since August 2000 on at least 10 occasions.
Since 1995, Japan has prohibited by law the manufacture and import of CFC 12 and stopped its auto manufacturers from producing air conditioner units that use coolant containing CFC 12. A documented destroyer of the earth’s ozone layer, CFC 12 is also a significant contributor to global warming. Many international organisations blame that People’s Republic of China is busy smuggling into neighboring Japan large quantities of CFC 12.
The China under terms of the 1987 Montreal Protocol on substances that deplete the ozone layer has pledged to halt entirely the production of CFCs by 2010. The environmentalists blame that, faced with that deadline China has been furiously producing and smuggling out, the contraband product at the rate of at least 50,000 tonnes a year since 1997.
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This amount accounts for two-thirds of the entire world’s supply of CFC 12. However, the government figures indicate that at present nearly 51,000 tonnes per year of CFCs is produced by 37 companies. So extensive is China’s illegal smuggling of CFC 12 that Japanese authorities have now become alarmed. They discovered that at least 100,000 bottles of bootleg CFC 12 have been sneaked into Japan between Januarys to August 2001, mislabeled as motor oil.
Jack S. Katzman of California pleaded guilty on June 29, 1999 in US District Court for California in Los Angeles to violating the Clean Air Act by smuggling the ozone-depleting refrigerant gas CFC 12 into the United States from Mexico. The United States banned the production of CFC 12 in 1996. In advance to this a heavy excise tax of $ 5.35 was placed on CFC to encourage the transition to other alternative refrigerants.
While the production was initially restricted and then banned, the use of CFC was not banned for quite some time. This was to accommodate a transition period to substitutes. This had led to a large black market for illegally imported CFCs. Contraband CFC 12 can be sold for around $2 per pound while legally obtained CFC 12 will sell for $20 or more.
In 1996, for the first time in Miami, a Court was considering the case of a large scale CFC refrigerant smuggling case. Homi Patel pleads guilty to smuggling CFC 12. Two cargo containers of CFC 12 were falsely reported to have been shipped on to Mexico, but were instead left in Miami where Mr. Patel was planning to resell the CFC 12 without paying the federally imposed excise tax.
From 1995 to 1999, in Miami the hot new controlled substance was CFC 12. Drugs were still much bigger but an estimated 10,000 tonnes of CFC 12 was smuggled in the United States per year between 1995 and 1997. The supply was coming from Mexico, Russia, China, India and some eastern European countries. The smuggling was done using a number of different methods. Sometimes the container were falsely labeled as another chemical similar to CFC 12, or was claimed as recycled CFC, or hidden among a larger shipments of legal chemicals.
Since 1996, Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), a nonprofit organisation based in Great Britain and the United States, has successfully exposed the international illegal trade in ozone-depleting substances around the world, especially in Asia, Europe and the US. They provided evidence exposing Europe’s largest case of CFC smuggling to German customs and media.
The production of CFCs and halons for the domestic market, except for some essential uses, has been prohibited in the European Union since 1 January, 1995. However, due to loopholes in the regulations, thousands of tonnes of CFC contraband enter into European market every year. This trade had represented a multi-million dollar business with minimal risk of capture.
After ceasing the production as the prices of CFCs had climbed, unscrupulous entrepreneurs and profiteers had appeared who can make over tenfold profit by diverting material from legitimate commerce. Since the phase out began, Europe had witnessed the sudden entry of dozens of small fly-by-night brokers in the CFC supply business.
Illegal imports from Russia and China, and to a lesser extent India, had entered all the major European markets as well as the United States. Virgin CFCs had been labeled as legal alternatives, and material intended for repackaging and dispatch to developing countries had leaked onto domestic market of Europe.
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According to EI A, CFC smugglers have now turned their area of operation, because CFC is no longer required in European and the US market. However, it is still in great demand in developing Asian countries, like India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam. EIA has obtained evidence indicating that contraband CFCs are smuggled into India from Nepal and Bangladesh.
During early 1999 and March 2000, more than 800 tonnes of Ozone Depleting Substances (ODS) was smuggled into India, totaling 12 percent of national consumption and signifying heavy losses for the national treasury. During January 1999 and June 2000, Nepal imported more than 422 tonnes of ODS, although the country’s official annual consumption is approximately 50 tonnes.
EIA’s investigations uncovered that much of this originally transits through India and is then turned around and smuggled back through border crossings. Bangladeshi companies are also involved in similar activities to move contraband ODS into India. Indian Customs officers recently seized 281 illegal disposable cylinders of CFCs and HCFCs shipped through Bangladesh.
Smuggling of CFCs into Pakistan has risen over the last couple of years, fuelled by a domestic quota that is small when compared with demand and abetted by corrupt officials. In September 2000, several 20 foot containers of CFC 11 and CFC 12 were illegally imported into Pakistan by declaring that the containers held HCFC 22.
A new form of smuggling recently came into light in Malaysia. Cylinders labeled and packaged as containing HFC 134a were discovered to actually contain CFC 12. Malaysian authorities also seized four containers containing 4,600 cylinders of CFC 12 in February 2000. In Vietnam, around 80 percent of CFC 12 imports into the country are illegal.
As scientists all over the world are engaged in finding ways to protect the ozone layer, the smugglers are just enlarging the ozone hole by their act. The international community should tackle this problem on emergency basis otherwise the stratosphere will soon be ozone less, and then we will all die of skin cancer and radiation exposure.