Cuba. The Caribbean island is working on the development of a plant that will be responsible for destroying ozone-depleting substances (ODS) and that will operate as part of the facilities of a cement factory.
The project will be responsible for the collection, retrieval, storage, transport and regeneration of the aforementioned substances. Natacha Figueredo, of the Technical Office of Ozone of Cuba (OTOZ), commented that in the cement factory the ODS that were stored after the replacement of more than 2 and a half million refrigerators and about 300,000 domestic air conditioners during the so-called Energy Revolution are destroyed.
Hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) are now among the substances covered within the second phase of the phase-out schedule. Currently, Cuba has destroyed 258.4 kilograms of ODS, and that figure is expected to increase when the new plant begins operation.
The project is currently in the process of validating the non-emission during the process of persistent organic compounds (dioxins and furans), an action in which samples are sent to accredited European laboratories for these analyses.
Cuba is the first country in the world to completely eliminate the consumption of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in refrigeration. According to data from the OTOZ, the actions carried out under the auspices of that office allow Cuba to stop emitting four million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere annually.
With www.cubasi.cu information
