HFCs – Once the Solution, Now the Problem
Protecting the environment is never cut and dry. Take, for example, the issue of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). Used in the 1990s to replace ozone-depleting gases that air conditioners, refrigerators and insulating foam emitted, HFCs helped to shrink the hole in the ozone layer, seen as a serious global environmental crisis of the time.
But now scientists are saying that these very same HFCs are no longer helping the environment. Instead, they are actually making things worse. These odorless chemicals are leaking out of refrigerators and air conditioners in minute amounts (and in larger amounts when …
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