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Partnership puts Bangladesh on target in protecting ozone layer

Tuesday, 13 August 2002: Bangladesh achieved a major environmental breakthrough recently when Advanced Chemical Industries (ACI), in partnership with the Government and UNDP, dismantled the biggest aerosol factory in the country, slashing 60 per cent of production of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) nationwide.

Industry in Bangladesh has grown rapidly over the past decade, but the country has nonetheless reduced production of CFCs, gases that deplete the protective ozone layer in the atmosphere. Ozone absorbs ultraviolet radiation that can harm plants and animals, including causing skin cancer.

This makes Bangladesh one of the few nations on course to meet reduction targets for CFCs under the Montreal Protocol. Bangladesh signed the protocol in 1995, agreeing to rid the nation of all CFCs by 2010.

"We knew that CFCs would be banned, but we were in the dark about how to make the change to CFC-free technology, so when UNDP and the Government approached us we were very keen to work with them," said F.H. Ansarey, Executive Director of ACI. The company is the country's largest producer of mosquito sprays and pesticides.

Seeing the benefits to their industry, ACI agreed to cover half the cost of converting to the new technology, and the Montreal Multilateral Fund picked up the rest of the bill. As a result, consumers in Bangladesh can buy locally manufactured aerosols that are CFC-free.

"Our main target was converting aerosol production, and now we will focus on eliminating the other 40 per cent of CFCs, which are mainly used in refrigerants and cold storage," said Adbus Sobhan, Director of the Bangladesh Department of Environment.

UNDP has helped the Government draw up plans to train technicians in service shops handling refrigerants to recover and recycle ozone-depleting substances. In the lead-up to the final ban in 2010, importers will be given tax breaks to encourage them to supply CFC-free refrigerants, and customs officials will be trained to recognize refrigerants containing these substances.

Most governments around the world have ratified the protocol, but implementation is behind schedule. The UN Environment Programme points out, however, that without the protocol, ultraviolet radiation reaching some parts of the world would have doubled by 2050 and the amount of ozone-depleting chemicals in the atmosphere would have been five times greater than is now projected.

The government has decided to ban in phases the use of gas and other substances causing ozonosphere depletion, reports BSS.

"Since these substances are linked to the national economy and livelihood of the people, the government is going to ban their uses in phases," Director General of the Department of Environment Hedayetul Islam Chowdhury told a workshop here yesterday.

He said while CFC is the major element of ozonosphere depletion, more than 23 lakh CFC emitting refrigerators were currently being used in the country at household and commercial levels which could not be thrown away overnight. The Director General, however, said a project had already been taken for CFC recovery and recycling to stop the emission of the gas during servicing of the refrigerators.

His comments came as he was addressing a two-day workshop for technicians engaged in refrigeration and air conditioning repair and service centres.

The Department of Environment organised the workshop under its "Strengthening for the Phase out of Ozone Depleting Substances" project at the auditorium of Bangladesh Institute of Administration and Management (BIAM) here.

The workshop was told that nearly 120 tonnes of CFC is being emitted in the atmosphere of the country everyday.

Director of Gas and Chemical Limited A.H. Syed Wahid chaired the function. It was attended, among others, by President of Bangladesh Refrigeration and Merchant Association Mojibur Rahman and Abdus Sobhan.

Referring to a 1991 study Chowdhury said aerosol production units, refrigeration and air-conditioning servicing centres, cold storage, fish freezing units, ice and icecreme factories, air conditioners, pharmaceuticals and chemical industries and mobile freezing vans in the country were releasing substances causing ozonosphere depletion.

He, however, said the aerosol producing ACI, which uses highest volume of CFC, was currently carrying out a project to phase out the use of the gas turning the CFC-based technologies into hydrocarbon-based ones.

The Director General said with the complete implementation of the project, the use of ozone depletion substances would come down by 60 per cent.

Study

Improve the Observational Basis for Studies of the Impact of Tropospheric Ozone on Climate in Developing Countries and Build up of Capacity as part of the Global Assessment of Tropospheric Ozone as a GHG.
for GEF–UNDP–UNEP–World Meteorological Organization

This activity has been submitted to GEF for Project Development Fund. The participating countries in this project include: Algeria, Botswana, Argentina, Bangladesh, Brazil, Cape Verde, Chile, China, Costa Rica, Cote d’Ivoire, Ecuador, India, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, The Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Sudan, Vanuatu, and Venezuela. The major objective of this project is to establish 24 ozonesonde stations in 21 developing countries in the tropics and sub-tropics. The project may have significant policy implications if tropospheric ozone is found to be of comparable importance to CH₄ as a GHG, as estimated by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).