Ozone - Stay
Posted 23rd March 2001

PARIS, France, March 19, 2001 (ENS) - The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has launched a web portal to help implement a key environmental treaty on protecting the ozone layer, the Montreal Protocol. The new portal - The Online Halon Trader - will facilitate the international exchange of "banked" halons and reduce the use of newly produced halons that damage the ozone layer, the agency said in a statement issued in Paris. Halons are manufactured brominated hydrocarbons that act as very effective fire extinguishants. But they are three to 10 times more effective in depleting the ozone layer as compared to chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), the refrigerants that have been limited by the Montreal Protocol.

A halon bank is the total quantity of halon existing at a given moment in a facility, organization, country or region. It may be held in fire protection systems, fire extinguishers, and in storage. A major goal of such a bank is to avoid demand for the manufacture of virgin halons by redeploying ones from decommissioned systems or non-essential applications to essential uses, the agency said. "It is the first business-to-business web portal to support compliance with a multilateral environmental agreement," said Gary Taylor, co-chair of UNEP's Halons Technical Options Committee. Halons are controlled under the 1987 Montreal Protocol, which sets out the time schedule for freeze and reduction of ozone depleting substances. Developed countries eliminated halon consumption by 1994, while developing countries have until 2010 to do so, Taylor said. UNEP's new portal, designed for companies that use halons in fire protection and control, provides a virtual marketplace where people can match demand with supply. Companies or halon banks that can meet this demand with recovered, reclaimed or recycled halon will be able to respond or post their own listings.

UNEP provides the platform for this exchange and does not in any way become party to the transaction between those who seek halons and those who provide halons. As part of the terms of service, providers agree that their halons are recovered, recycled, reclaimed or banked, and that they are not newly produced halons being sold for the first time. Halon gas is being phased out because it attacks the Earth's protective ozone layer when released into the atmosphere, warming the Earth and increasing the risk of skin cancers - of which New Zealand is second to top victim.