SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
In a followup to a story previously on Soylent News: https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=18/05/17/022243
It seems that at least part of an unexpected increase in CFC-11 (an ozone depleting chemical) is due to small factories in China manufacturing the chemical for use in making Styrofoam insulation for refrigerators. The normal alternative, HCFC-141b is expensive and in short supply. The illegal factories are set up, run for a time until discovered and then move to a new location. In addition to being cheaper, CFC-11 gives a better foaming action than the ozone safe alternative.
"You had a choice: Choose the cheaper foam agent that's not so good for the environment, or the expensive one that's better for the environment," said Zhang Wenbo, owner of a refrigerator factory here in Xingfu, in Shandong Province, where he and many other small-scale manufacturers said that until recently, they had used CFC-11 widely to make foam insulation.
"Of course, we chose the cheaper foam agent," Mr. Zhang said during an interview in his office. "That's how we survived."
As it happens, a crackdown was underway in the town and moments later, four officials entered Mr. Zhang's factory, handed him a leaflet warning against a range of environmental violations, including using CFC-11, and ordered his factory closed.
"They never told us until last year that it was damaging the atmosphere," Mr. Zhang said. "Nobody came to check what we were using, so we thought it was O.K."
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/24/world/asia/china-ozone-cfc.html
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Hartree on Wednesday June 27 2018, @12:12AM
Notice this:
"As it happens, a crackdown was underway in the town and moments later, four officials entered Mr. Zhang's factory, handed him a leaflet warning against a range of environmental violations, including using CFC-11, and ordered his factory closed."
This happened when the NYT investigation was interviewing Zhang. Doesn't that strike you as a little too coincidental? Chinese law enforcement often is sensitive to outsiders seeing less presentable things and they likely knew some people were asking around about this.
Given that the factories producing CFC-11 seem to keep closing and reopening rather than the principals getting jailed, I suspect there's more than a little graft going on in this town. Mr. Zhang got reminded that talking to journalists about things that are profitable to local officials can make unfortunate things happen.