§ 17. Mr. WallaceTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what progress is being made in his efforts to replace chlorofluorocarbons in refrigerators.
§ Mr. RidleyBy the end of this year, European manufacturers of domestic refrigerators and freezers expect to reduce by 45 per cent. the CFC content of their products controlled by the Montreal protocol. New replacements for the CFCs, both as refrigerants and in the insulating foam, have been identified and should be commercially available early in the 1990s, subject to the satisfactory completion of toxicological testing and environmental evaluation. HCFC-22, which is much less damaging than the protocol CFCs, is already widely used in commercial and industrial refrigeration.
§ Mr. WallaceI thank the Secretary of State for his very informative reply. Has any consideration been given to the possibility of imposing a requirement that the CFC package on refrigerators that are currently on sale should be detachable? Does his Department intend to give any financial assistance to local authorities to enable them to prepare and build disposal facilities for CFC elements that come from refrigerators?
§ Mr. RidleyRecycling the coolant in the motors of refrigerators and the foam in their doors is very complex. It will probably be better to concentrate our efforts on producing substitutes, so that we may stop using these substances in the first place. But a lot of research is still going on; I do not think that we have yet come to a definite answer.