Ozone Depleting Substances

Ozone Depleting Substance (ODS)

EHS has been actively involved with management of ODS for over 10 years. The focus of EHS work in this area is to assist regulators and industry association with the management of ODS in Canada.

Environment Canada

EHS carried several assignments that assisting Environment Canada with the development of Canada’s Strategy to Accelerate the Phase-Out of CFC and Halon Uses and to Dispose of the Surplus Stocks, http://www.ccme.ca/ assets/pdf/cfchalonsdspslstrtgye.pdf. The work involved:

Development of predictive models for CFC and halon inventories in the major use sectors to quantify ODS stocks and the rate at which these stocks were being reduced.

Conducting public consultations on the Proposed Strategy to Accelerate the Phase-out of ODS (http://www.ec.gc.ca/ozone/docs/archives/en/ phaseout/surplus2.cfm) in both official languages in: Vancouver, Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal and Halifax,

Technical and economic assessment of over 40 technologies for destruction of surplus stocks of ODS.

Refrigerant Management Canada (RMC)

RMC, an arm of Heating Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Institute (HRAI), was created by industry to collect and dispose of the CFC inventory in the Commercial Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning sector in Canada. A voluntary levy on HCFC replacement refrigerant provides the funding for this program, see www.hrai.ca/rmc/. EHS assisted RMC by developing operating standards for the two types of Service Providers to RMC: Collection and Destruction Service Providers.

EHS assisted RMC with:

Establishing standards for and selection of Collection and Destruction Service Providers;

an updated analysis of the Canadian CFC inventory;
an update on international commercial destruction facilities;
an assessment of potential environmental liabilities for the RMC program,

Since the launch of RMC operations in 2002, EHS carried out numerous audits of both Collection and Destruction Service Providers in Canada and USA.

Ontario Ministry of the Environment (MOE)

EHS assessed the availability of suitable alternatives to Class II (HCFC-based) solvents for specific industrial cleaning applications in Ontario. EHS’ report became the basis for a modification of provincial regulations, which established an extension of phase-out implementation dates for certain Class II solvents.