While traveling recently I witnessed something that I know occurs far too often – the numbers don’t lie – and yet still saddens me immensely.
A friend and I were picking up his kids at his school, Byron Center Christian School, in Michigan for a field trip to the Kent County Recycling and Education Center. We were about to embark on an important and noble attempt to teach 5 year olds how important recycling and reuse are to reducing waste. To be fair, much of the information was helping the adults learn what is and is not actually recyclable, but I digress.
Meanwhile, I witnessed a few industry professionals taking the opposite position on the importance of “recycling and reuse”. At the school, work was being completed by one of the larger HVAC mechanical contractors in the area. The school was abuzz with parents and kids scurrying about, as could be expected from the typical “car line” pickup process.
The units were hanging on their mounts, the service van and equipment trailer parked just feet away, and three technicians worked to make the necessary upgrades. However, as we walked by we could hear the hiss of units sending their precious, and soon to be coveted refrigerant, into the atmosphere. No recovery machine, no recovery cylinder, no recovery.
My friend, knowing my background and my passion for our industry, asked “Aren’t they supposed to recover that?”
I responded with a dejected “yeah”.
He pressed on “Is that just lazy techs, or do you think that’s company policy?”
Before answering, I looked around — checked the open service van and the surrounding setup. No recovery machine. No cylinder.
I said, “For a job like this, everyone involved knows recovery is required. If it wasn’t standard practice, I’d at least expect to see the right equipment on the truck.”
Certainly, if the units were operable, they could have been pumped down into the condenser for later recovery. If that were the case, there wouldn’t be three units hissing away.
It wasn’t a nitrogen purge – there was no nitrogen present.
It wasn’t a full-blast line cut either – just a controlled hiss, throttled back through the service port to avoid drawing attention from the surrounding crowd.
And it wasn’t quick. The hiss lingered.
I hope I’m wrong, but all evidence leads to the more obvious conclusion – knowingly and willingly venting refrigerant with no attempt to stop it or recover it and certainly the appearance that it is a company wide practice.
With a reclamation rate of less than 6% of consumption the numbers prove this to be an all too common practice. The phase down of HFCs is well underway and the availability of service gas is on the line. If we don’t change, we won’t have affordable refrigerants for our clients – and we’ll only have ourselves to blame for the cost spikes and supply shortages.
It’s long past time to start recovering a resource that is so easily reclaimed for reuse. The economics make sense, the law requires it and frankly it’s just good stewardship.
Vent over.