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Refrigerant Reclaim Australia (RRA) is involved in a world-first study to find out how much refrigerant is left in end-of-life split air conditioning systems.

Eager to capture and reclaim this refrigerant, RRA CEO, Michael Bennett, said this study will find out how much refrigerant remains in the 10 million units currently installed across Australia.

“Plus there is another one million units purchased every year,” he said. “We just don't know how much refrigerant there is at end of life for these consumer durables.

“This is due to lack of enforcement so we want to know how we can address this.

“There is likely to be at least half a charge left in those systems, maybe more. But we need to know what the end of life period is and how much refrigerant is left in them so we can recover it.”

Bennett checked in with organisations around the globe seeking to get this information.

“We asked around the world to see if anyone knew to save us having to do it but nobody had any idea so we're going to go and find out,” he said.

At the same time the RRA is working to reach an agreement to supply refrigerant to TAFE free of charge to take the pressure off tight budgets.

The automotive air conditioning sector is also in the process of moving to R1234yf, which is flammable.

“It isn't necessary to recover R1234yf but we cannot just let it go because its flammable,” Bennett said.

“We did a study with GHD to look at safe ways of emitting flammable gases and came up with some programs including a Flammable Refrigerants Guide for this sector.”

Details of the study were announced at CCN Live in August. Full coverage of CCN's Trade Talk event appears in the October edition of CCN Magazine.