Chlorofluorocarbons, an introduction.

Chlorofluorocarbons are manmade chemicals consisting of fluoride, carbon and chlorine. These chemicals are found in every day objects such as aerosol cans, refridgerators, asthma inhalers, solvents, foams and many more.

The reasons we are campaigning to change the amount of CFCs when perfect alternatives are available such as HCFCs and HFCs is because CFCs have contributed to the depletion of the ozone layer which in turns contributes to many enviromental issues.

Some of the main problems are the following:

• every time you spray an aerosol, open a fridge or use a solvent or foam, CFC is released into the atmosphere.
• the disposal of containers or aerosols, solvents and foams is not satisfactory, if the packaging is damaged, more CFCs will be released
• old refridgerators are not handled correctly, people are unware of the fact that if you don't have your refridgerator emptied and you have it dumped, a significent amount of remaining CFC is released
• people do not know the dangers of CFC and how common it is, spraying an air freshner in a way which is slightly over the top can lead to 10 times the amount of CFC released which would not happen if people knew about it
• although CFCs are technically neccessary, replacing it with HCFCs or HFCs is an enviromentally friendly way of dealing with the problem so although we cannot stop the release we can make sure that if they are realeased it is not damaging the enviroment.

Above is a pie chart of where CFC is most commonly found in the household.