Montreal Protocol Focus on Inhalers, Smuggling

NAIROBI, Kenya, November 10, 2003 (ENS) - Controlling substances that deplete the ozone layer is of great importance, said Kenya's Environment Minister Newton Kulundu, in his address welcoming delegates to the 15th Meeting of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol in Nairobi today.

The stratospheric ozone layer blocks harmful ultraviolet rays from the Sun. Prolonged overexposure to ultraviolet radiation has been linked to skin cancer in humans and other adverse biological effects on plants and animals.

Kulundu thanked donor countries and implementing agencies for their financial and technical help in bringing about Kenya's achievements in ozone protection, and asked for consideration of the capacity of Kenya and other developing countries as the world attempts to phase out use of the ozone depleter methyl bromide.

Executive Secretary of the Ozone Secretariat Marco Gonzalez (Photos courtesy IISD Linkages)

Gonzalez explained that the meeting also will deal with the phaseout of ozone depleting chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) used to power metered dose inhalers for the treatment of asthma or chronic obstructive lung disease.

A large portion of each puff from a metered dose inhaler is propellant, and most current products use CFCs as their propellant. Although most of the propellant is inhaled at first, it is quickly eliminated from the body, primarily by breathing out. The body does not break down or otherwise build up CFCs, so what comes out of an inhaler does get released into the atmosphere.

The 15 European Union countries and the 10 acceding countries that will join the EU next year have proposed a short term phaseout of CFC powered metered dose inhalers, saying that that CFC free metered dose inhalers containing salbutamol are widely available.

The EU proposal asks all Parties to the protocol to submit their nominations for essential use exemptions for metered dose inhalers by specifying, for each nominated use, the active ingredient, the intended market for sale or distribution, and the volume of CFCs required.

The Secretariat's ambitious plans to phase out CFC propelled metered dose inhalers is meeting some resistance among the delegates, many of whom worry about the economic and medical consequences.

Russia would like to retain the opportunity for millions of asthma sufferers to purchase currently available cheap alternatives, even if they are powered by CFCs. The U.S. and China have also voiced strong objections.

Makers of metered dose inhalers are in transition away from the use of CFCs. (Photo courtesy The Alliance for Responsible Atmospheric Policy)

The nongovernmental Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) caused a stir at the meeting with its revelation of elaborate CFC smuggling operations spanning three continents and including Singapore, South Africa, and the United States.

The report, entitled “Lost in Transit – Global CFC Smuggling Trends and the Need for Faster Phase Out” is based on undercover investigations by EIA personnel. It reveals the global nature of the illegal trade and exposes CFC smuggling operations coordinated by Singaporean dealers who seek to deceive U.S. authorities and dump illegal CFCs on the American market.

The EIA report shows how Singaporean companies offer to sell CFCs to the United States, mislead the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and engineer elaborate international trading schemes to avoid U.S. enforcement efforts.

EIA campaigner Alexander von Bismarck says, “Over the last decade, the United States has been working hard and effectively to stop the illegal import of these dangerous chemicals. Our investigations suggest that these efforts are now threatened by sophisticated smuggling operations in Singapore and other transit countries.”

EIA undercover investigators met with Singaporean businesses involved in such illegal practices and revealed the role which transit countries play in this trade by facilitating the diversion of CFCs onto the black market.

Singapore and other transit points in the illegal CFC trade such as Dubai do not sufficiently control or monitor the movement of CFCs through their ports, and companies are able to operate illicit trading schemes with minimal interference. One particular company, Leempeng Enterprise Pte Ltd offered EIA investigators a shipment of CFCs complete with false paperwork and offered to conceal the goods behind uncontrolled chemicals to avoid detection.

In May, President George W. Bush signed a Free Trade Agreement with Singapore, which the U.S. Congress ratified in September. The EIA report suggests that the smuggler friendly climate of Singapore threatens the efforts of the United States to protect its borders from environmentally harmful substances.

Representatives of the Environmental Investigation Agency release their new report on CFC smuggling at the conference today. (Photo courtesy IISD)

One CFC smuggling scam involves the gold mines of South Africa. As used CFCs are legally permitted to be imported into the United States, opportunistic traders claim to extract CFCs from refrigeration equipment required in South Africa’s goldmines.

But, EIA investigators have found, the CFCs are often not genuine used material at all, but a mixture of used and illegal virgin material, or illegal virgin CFCs that have been deliberately contaminated to give the appearance of used chemicals, which fetch a very high price on the lucrative U.S. market. To facilitate this scam, virgin CFCs are smuggled into South Africa through the neighboring countries.

Despite the achievements of the Montreal Protocol, the slow reaction to the problem of smuggling has allowed the illicit CFC trade to undermine its success and integrity, the EIA warns. This could further delay the recovery of the ozone layer.

The size of this year's Antarctic ozone hole reached 10.9 million square miles on September 11, 2003, smaller than September 10, 2000, the largest ever recorded when it covered 11.5 million square miles, according to scientists from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the Naval Research Laboratory. Last year the ozone hole was smaller, covering 8.1 million square miles.

The size of the ozone depletion region shows an increase in its total size from last year, indicating that the relatively smaller hole of 2002 was mostly a quirk of meteorological conditions over Antarctica. The difference is directly attributed to year-to-year temperature variations across the Antarctic continent, not an increase in the amount of ozone-depleting compounds in the atmosphere, the U.S. scientists said.

Chlorine and bromine containing compounds from human activity are the primary cause of ozone depletion. The 1987 United Nations Montreal Protocol and its subsequent amendments have curtailed the use of chlorine containing chlorofluorcarbons (CFCs) and bromine containing halons.

Because of the protocol, the amounts of these ozone depleting substances have begun to decline in the lower atmosphere and to level off in the stratosphere, where the ozone layer resides, said the scientists.

The Montreal Protocol was agreed on January 1, 1987 and is now ratified by 184 countries. Under the protocol and its amendments, ozone depleting substances are to be reduced and eliminated through the development of chemical substitutes and alternative manufacturing processes. Phase out is supposed to be complete by 2010.