EUROPE: Suppliers of refrigerant have been reminded that it is an offence to import, transit or trans-ship ozone depleting substances through member states of the European Union after a number of illegal shipments were uncovered.
The warning from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) comes after discrepancies were uncovered between import and export figures of some countries involving over 100 tonnes of ODS.

Following investigations, Singapore confirmed that it had exported three shipments of 15,5 tonnes of R22 each via EU member state Slovenia to non-EU Serbia in 2010. UNEP also discovered that China had exported 38 tonnes of a mixture of HCFC 142b/22 to Russia which were passing Russia as transit shipment to Kazakhstan.

The Montreal does not allow trade of HCFCs between parties and non-parties to the Beijing Amendment and the European Commission has confirmed that the import of all ODS that account for consumption under the Montreal Protocol is prohibited in the EU. This includes transit or trans-shipment and includes any related products or equipment and notably concerns shipments to non-EU countries Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Serbia, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, San Remo, Andorra and Switzerland.

Exemptions may apply for feedstock uses, halon equipment for critical uses or for goods that are on board of a ship but are not unloaded in the EU port.

While the use of virgin HCFCs are already banned in Europe with total phase out happening in 2015, other countries signed to the Monteal Protcol can still use HCFC up to 2040.