A few industry critics have recently stated quite boldly that “containment doesn’t work” or, even more incredibly, “the F Gas Regulation hasn’t worked”.

It is a mind-boggling, arrogant and rather premature, for anyone to claim that a regulation-hasn’t worked when in the UK it has only in recent months become law, still hasn’t defined the terms of its company register and only had training courses available for about three months

Most reasonable people in our industry would happily see a fully working and operational F Gas Regulation because a side effect of the regulation is that we finally get what the responsible half of our industry has been crying out for as long as I can remember - mandatory registration.

There is a problem with this admittedly – that our government has decided not to endorse an operative register at this time. This could be a major issue in a couple of years as the usual migration of labour between registered companies means that keeping tabs on where individuals are will be nigh impossible. This issue will undoubtedly be one of the big talking points during the regulation’s revision in 2011.

At least we have a company register, even if it isn’t as strict as many would have liked it to be. We also have the legal framework now in place to restrict the sale of refrigerants.

Although if split systems were supplied without a holding charge (or in many cases the total refrigerant charge) it would prevent cowboys buying splits and creating leaks by poorly installing “DIY splits”, as well as making it far easier to report on HFC usage – a necessary part of the Regulation to prove it is working.

Our industry has much to do here: make sure the company registration scheme works; make sure cowboys cannot get their hands on refrigerant; manufacturers could stop fitting flare nuts to systems as well as supplying with an OFN holding charge only; shop any companies that are knowingly breaking the law; etc. Every bit will help make it work.

But while so many of us are trying to make sure it works, why are some so intent on denouncing what we’re trying to do? Do these green lobbyists have some other agenda they’re not telling us about?

If they really care about the environment surely every little bit helps.