Pakistani customs officers have made the largest seizure of R-22 (also known as HCFC-22) refrigerant, a powerful ozone-depleting substance and greenhouse gas. It is learnt that in the largest seizure of its kind for Pakistan, customs authorities confiscated 18,000 kilogrammes of the smuggled refrigerant recently at Karachi Port.
The customs appraisement officer received information that an attempt would be made to illegally import huge quantities of the gas. The credit goes to Pakistan's customs and the National Ozone Unit in the Ministry of Climate Change, for taking action to prevent this destructive shipment from getting to its intended destination.
The officer is one of a number of customs officers around the world who have received UN Environment training to identify ozone-depleting substances smuggled by misdeclaration and mislabelling, among other methods.
Countries around the world are phasing out hydro-chlorofluorocarbons like R-22 under the Montreal Protocol, the treaty that protects the ozone layer. According to the latest Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion, actions taken under the Montreal Protocol are resulting in steady, long-term decreases in the atmospheric abundance of controlled ozone-depleting substances (ODSs) and the ongoing recovery of stratospheric ozone at a rate of 1 to 3 per cent per decade since 2000.
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