`Ozone-eaters' rules to tighten up
15 Jan 2000
The signatories to the Montreal Protocol - the international agreement controlling trade and production of ozone-depleting chemicals - have plugged the final gap in the treaty by setting a timetable to ban methyl bromide. The compound, used as a soil fumigant, will be banned in the developed world by 2005, and in the developing world by 2015. A further agreement set into motion an international registration system to help police and customs eliminate the flourishing black market in CFCs.
The registration system gives police and customs officers extra powers to detect illegally-smuggled CFCs, which are continuing to flood into Europe and the US. However - and extremely unusually - both industry and environmentalists agree that the moves do not go far enough, and only an immediate and total ban on CFC sales will halt the black market. At the moment, exports of used CFCs are allowed for recycling purposes.
