Three Environmental Ages

Part 4: The Montreal Protocol/The Three Rs and More

The Montreal Protocol

The depletion of the Earth's protective ozone layer by a specific group of man-made chemicals was first proposed by Nobel-Laureates Dr Mario Molina and Dr Sherwood Rowland in 1974. The chemicals studied by Molina and Rowland were the chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), chemicals previously believed to be inert. Their hypothesis raised concern among scientists and the public worldwide. Although the first real evidence of ozone depletion was not reported until 1985 when the Antarctic Ozone Hole was discovered, the first steps to limit the use of chlorofluorocarbons were quickly taken. By June of 1975, Johnson Wax stopped using CFCs in aerosol cans, Oregon had banned CFCs in aerosol cans, and the National Resources Defense Council in the United States had sued for a ban on CFCs in all aerosol cans.

The late 1970s and early 1980s saw heated debate on the CFC/ozone depletion issue. In March of 1977, the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) held its first international meeting to discuss the problem of ozone depletion. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1980 announced its intention to freeze all CFC production at 1979 levels, but the incoming Reagan administration never pressed for implementation of the freeze. In April of 1983, Sweden, Norway, and Finland submitted a plan for a worldwide ban on CFCs in aerosol products and limitations on all other uses. However, by 1985 international negotiators had failed to agree on global CFC regulations although the Vienna Convention had agreed to further research and information exchange on ozone depletion.

In October of 1984, a British research team detected a 40 percent loss of ozone over the Antarctic in the austral spring. In January 1986, a NASA/UNEP report warned that damage to the ozone layer was apparent. In the same month, the US EPA released its Stratospheric Ozone Protection Plan which called for new studies to determine whether additional regulations were needed.

In the summer of 1987, negotiations finally produced a draft protocol to be presented at an international conference held in Montreal. On September 14, 1987, 43 nations signed the Montreal Protocol. It called for a freeze on the consumption and production of CFCs at 1986 levels by 1990, a reduction of CFC production by 20 percent by 1994, and an additional 30 percent by 1999. While the Protocol did not ban the manufacture or use of CFCs, it did go further than previous initiatives which would only have banned spray-can use of CFCs. The Montreal Protocol was hailed as the first truly international effort in protecting the environment. It was also the first international mechanism to try to prevent, rather than just repair, a global environmental problem.

Before the ink had dried on the Montreal Protocol, the "smoking gun" proving CFCs in the stratosphere were indeed destroying ozone was found in the Antarctic stratosphere. Coupled with the continued decline in the ozone layer, not only over the Antarctic but globally, it was soon evident that further action was required. The first meeting of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol in Helsinki in 1989 produced the Helsinki Declaration that held CFCs should be phased out altogether by the year 2000. In April 1990, signatory nations of the Montreal Protocol agreed in Geneva to hasten the phaseout of CFCs and include additional ozone-depleting chemicals in the list. In June 1990 the Second Meeting of the Parties held in London agreed to tighter controls for CFCs and halons and added carbon tetrachloride and methyl chloroform to the list of controlled substances.

The Fourth Meeting of the Parties held in Copenhagen in November 1992 again changed the phase-out schedule of ozone depleting substances. The Copenhagen agreement called for a 100 percent elimination of CFCs, HBFCs, carbon tetrachloride and methyl chloroform production by January 1, 1996; a 100 percent elimination of halon production by January 1, 1994; and the phase-out and eventual elimination of HCFCs by 2030. Measures were also adopted that encourage recovery, recycling, leakage control and destruction of existing ozone-depleting substances.

While the damage from CFCs already released into the atmosphere will continue for much of the next century and compromise, industrial reluctance and international posturing has slowed progress on protecting the ozone layer, the Montreal Protocol has shown that agreement on exclusion is possible. The road has been long and difficult however, with adherents to the philosophies of ignorance and dilution ever present to hinder progress.

The Three Rs and More

Canada and the United States are among the world's largest producers of solid waste. For many of our citizens today, waste is placed at the curbside or in a waste bin, and it disappears from view, the ultimate out of sight, out of mind scenario. However, headlines announcing landfills reaching capacity and an imminent garbage crisis quickly brought solid waste out of the Age of Ignorance. In the late 1980s, the global odysseys of numerous of ships and barges laden with hazardous wastes showed us that the Age of Dilution for solid waste would likely be a short one. We have thus been rapidly thrust into the Age of Exclusion for garbage and solid waste. Unlike the issue of CFCs, waste management has been more a local or regional issue, and the response has been very grass-roots with the public often leading the government with proposed solutions, the most common being the Three Rs: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

Underlying the concern for municipal waste is the spectre of hazardous or toxic waste, both household and industrial. The current problem with toxic wastes is that of effective dispose. They have for years been unintentionally (and in some instances intentionally) spread across the countryside in small dumps and landfills from which they have insidiously seeped into the ground water. From the ground water, these toxic pollutants have spread to wells, rivers and lakes used for drinking water, recreation and agriculture.

The original concept of the Three Rs intended only to reduce the amount of waste being sent to landfills. By totally excluding recyclable materials such as cardboard, newspaper, fine paper, glass and metals from the waste stream, the input to land fills could be halved. Reduction of use of many materials destined for the waste stream and reuse of products one or more times before disposal would also reduce waste destined for landfills or incineration. Further Rs have since been added with the same ultimate purpose to reduce the amount of waste to be disposed. These include:

• Refuse � refusal at the source of unnecessary packaging, etc.;
• Rethink � rethinking design of products to reduce potential waste;
• Recovery � recovering raw materials for other uses or recovering energy inherent in the waste stream to generate heat or electricity;
• Restrict � restricting a product from the general waste stream by requiring disposal only at specific sites where it is neutralized or destroyed;
• Remove � removing a particular waste from the product or process.

Remove is particularly important in the issue of toxic wastes, and the issue of zero discharge. In this "R", the toxic compound or its precursor are engineered out of the system by replacement in the manufacturing process. The foremost example is the ban of the CFCs from a variety of products such as aerosol cans.

The Multi-Rs concepts show that environmental protection is possible when concerted efforts by diverse groups affect changes across the environmental media of air, water and soil.

Conclusion

The environmental philosophies of humankind have evolve through the years as the humans moved from hunter/gatherer into producer/consumer. Once it was apparent that ignoring environmental degradation could not continue, the first age of pollution regulation, the Age of Ignorance waned. Searching for solutions, humankind first entered into the Age of Dilution. It soon became apparent that the growth of human populations, continued industrial and agricultural growth, and the production of exotic chemicals would force the Age of Dilution to be a short one. The birth of the Age of Exclusion has been a traumatic one as we have realize that we may have little time to affect change. However, unprecedented elements of cooperation from local villages to the international community in its formative years presage a solidifying of the precepts of the philosophy of exclusion.