Used CFCs
What are CFCs and why does Standard Auto Wreckers collect them?
For many years, car air conditioners and home refrigerators have used chemical compounds called chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs for short, to help produce cool air. (Today, new cars and refrigerators don't use them.)
CFCs aren't dangerous by themselves, but they become a big problem if they escape into the air. Once they escape, they float up into the ozone layer—about 10 to 30 miles above the Earth. (Stratospheric ozone wraps all the way around the Earth and blocks the sun's most dangerous ultraviolet [UV] rays, keeping them from harming us.)
Once CFCs are up in the stratosphere where it's freezing cold, they break down into smaller pieces, and that's when the trouble starts...One of these smaller bits, chlorine, eats the oxygen atoms that make up some of the ozone. As the chlorine eats the oxygen atoms, the ozone layer gets thinner and can't keep as many UV rays from reaching the Earth. Too much UV light reaching the Earth can cause severe sunburn, eye damage, skin cancer, kill crops and other plants, and even destroy sea life.
Fortunately, CFCs can be recycled. In the Recycle City, Ken and David use special equipment to capture the cooling liquids that contain CFCs from the car's air conditioner. That way, the CFCs don't escape into the air and can be used again in older cars.
(Since new car air conditioners use different chemicals that don't hurt the ozone layer, CFCs will gradually become less of a problem.) |
