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For that reason, governments should ensure the careful handling and recycling of the CFCs now in use. Said Senator Albert Gore of Tennessee: "Much of what reaches the atmosphere is not coming from industrial sources. It's things like sloppy handling of hamburger containers." When plastic-foam burger holders are broken, the CFCs trapped inside escape. Discarded refrigerators release CFCs as well, and, noted Gore, a significant part of the U.S. contribution to CFC emissions comes from "draining automobile air conditioners and leaving the stuff in pans where it boils off." Such release of CFCs could be prevented if consumers and businesses were offered cash incentives to return broken-down air conditioners and refrigerators to auto and appliance dealers. Then the units could be sent back to the manufacturers so that the CFCs could be reused.
While recycling will help, the only sure way to save the ozone is a complete ban on CFC manufacture, which should be phased out over the next five years. Fortunately, as the Montreal Protocol demonstrates, banning CFCs will be far simpler than reducing other dangerous gases. "The CFC producers are a small club of countries," said Brice Lalonde, France's Environment Secretary. But a ban could admittedly be economically disruptive to the entire world: the annual market for CFCs is some $2.2 billion. The Soviet Union, which is a heavy user of CFCs, will have a particularly tough time phasing out the chemicals. "I agree with the ban in principle," said Vladimir Sakharov, a member of the Soviet State Committee for Environmental Protection, "but in practice it will be extremely difficult. Our economy is not as flexible as others."
To make the transition easier, chemical companies are working hard to find practical substitutes for CFCs. The most promising approach so far is to use CFC family members that are chemically altered to make them less dangerous to the environment. The chlorine-free substance HFC-134a, for example, is most likely to be used in refrigeration devices.
The major drawback to CFC substitutes is the high cost of making them. It may be that until better manufacturing techniques are developed, consumers will have to pay more for affected products. The prospect is not a pleasant one, but it is a small price to pay for curbing the greenhouse effect and saving the life-preserving ozone layer.