China foam insulation blamed for jump in ozone-depleting gas - Financial Times

July 9, 2018

China foam insulation blamed for jump in ozone-depleting gas
Manufacturers of PU product admit using chemical CFC-11 despite global ban

The Antarctic ozone hole has swelled this month to one of its biggest sizes on record, UN and US scientists say © AP

Emily Feng in Beijing 20 MINUTES AGO Print this page0
A mysterious jump in levels of a banned industrial gas that depletes the earth’s ozone layer has been linked to Chinese production of cheap insulation foam, according to a research report.

Scientists had puzzled over what caused atmospheric levels of the chemical CFC-11 to jump up to 38 per cent since 2012, despite reported global production being effectively zero.

Researchers from the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), a UK-based non-governmental organisation, uncovered large-scale use of CFC-11 by Chinese foam production companies, despite the gas being effectively banned since 1989.

“Information collected from foam production companies in China confirms that CFC-11 continues to be extensively produced and used illegally in China’s PU (Polyurethane) foam industry,” the EIA researchers wrote.

“The evidence gathered from conversations with multiple industry sources . . . points to its widespread use in the foam blowing production industry as the primary source of the illegal emissions.”

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CFC-11 is one of the most potent destroyers of ozone, a gas that protects the earth from harmful UV radiation. Once commonly used as refrigerant, the chemical was supposed to have been phased out by 2010 under the Montreal Protocol, a widely praised international agreement to protect the ozone layer that went into force in 1989.

“The increase in emission of CFC-11 appears unrelated to past production; this suggests unreported new production,” a separate government scientist wrote in Nature.

China is the world’s largest consumer of PU foam, comprising three-quarters of demand in Asia and a third globally in 2015, according to IHS Markit. PU foam is being used for insulating buildings as well as cooling units such as refrigerators.

In interviews with EIA researchers, 18 out of 21 foam manufacturers across China confirmed they were using CFC-11 because of its low cost, with several acknowledging it was illegal.

In China’s industrial province of Hebei, representatives of the region’s largest manufacturer of white agent — a component of PU foam — told researchers that 90-95 per cent of their production used CFC-11.

A representative of another Hebei company said it used CFC-11 in most of its products, admitting that it did so by running unlicensed factories in what the report called “shady and hidden operations” in Inner Mongolia.

Since 2016, environmental regulators in China’s Shandong province have acknowledged in public reports that “large volumes of illegally produced CFC-11” were used in plastic foam production.

EIA researchers said annual emissions from China’s illegal use of CFC-11 were equivalent to carbon dioxide emissions from 16 coal-fired power stations, but pointed to a “high degree of uncertainty” in their calculations.

Chinese officials did not respond to requests for comment.

Since the Montreal Protocol, some manufacturers, particularly in China, have substituted their production with HCFCs, a chemically related pollutant less harmful than CFC-11 but thought to be a contributor to global warming.

Environmental regulators in China have moved to phase out HCFCs from manufacturing by 2030.

Follow Emily Feng on Twitter @emilyzfeng