Cool-Safe is increasing Bounty Buy-Back payments from $25.00/kg to $40.00/kg for recovered synthetic refrigerants to help meet New Zealand’s F-Gas target.
NZ is aiming to reduce 90 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions by 2035.
Cool-Safe introduced a bounty for waste refrigerant back in 1993 and has returned the funds by reinvesting in the NZ HVACR industry.
The organisation has invested $1.3 million to date using the funds to reduce the environmental harm created by F-gases.
This increase in the per-kg payment for recovered refrigerant will see that reinvestment through bounty payments rise to more than $1.6 million per annum.
The Trust for the Destruction of Refrigerant Gases, which runs the Cool-Safe scheme, has been proactively collecting ozone depleting and synthetic refrigerants for destruction for more than three decades. This has resulted in 39,800 tonnes of OZONE depletion avoided and reduced the build-up of greenhouse gas (GHG) by 1,496,691 tonnes of Co2 equivalent.
The program began small with the first shipment of reclaimed refrigerant sent to Australia totalling 9,000kg.
This has increased with more than 110,000kgs destroyed in the past two years.
However, chair of the Trust for the Destruction of Synthetic Refrigerants, Richard Lauder, said more needs to be done to avoid the two per cent of GHG emissions that F-gases are directly responsible for in New Zealand.
“The collection and destruction of these highly potent global warming potential or ozone-depleting gases is crucial to meeting our goal of a 90 per cent reduction of GHG emissions from synthetic refrigerants by 2035,” he said.
“We are determined to support industry in fulfilling that environmental goal.”
Cool-Swap also provides a free cylinder exchange programme to help alleviate the impacts of worldwide cylinder shortages on the local sector, meaning that any heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration business has access to the appropriate gear for recovery and can avoid hefty fines up to $50,000.
Cool-Safe is also promoting a courier model for the collection of recovered refrigerants, the Coolest Courier. Industry is time-poor and technicians are in high demand, meaning that depositing recovered refrigerant can often be a hassle and a time sink.
Under Cool-Safe’s new courier model, technicians will no longer be required to take time out of their busy days to transport refrigerant to collection sites. Instead, they will book a Cool-Safe courier and their recovery cylinders will be collected for them, freeing skilled technicians up to do their job.