Fresh produce handlers need to get their refrigeration in order by July 4 next year, in time for F Gas Day.
Kyoto and its protocol may seem a long way away from fresh produce growers and packers, but the application of EC Regulation No. 842/2006 will put the ball firmly in the court of the thousands of refrigeration operators in the supply chain.
Responsibility for legally compliant auditing of all refrigeration of a certain size will switch to the end user.
The regulation covers the containment and recovery of F gases, used by anyone who has refrigeration equipment for storage systems.
Operators of this equipment have a range of obligations including prompt leakage repair, leakage checking and record keeping and ensuring that appropriately qualified personnel are used.
Mike Nankivell, of Space Air, sits on the F Gas Implementation Group. He told fresh info that fresh produce-operators should be preparing for the new law.
“This is a far-reaching regulation and no-one in the supply chain, from the end user right down to the manufacturer escapes some form of responsibility,” he said.
“There is now a responsibility on the end user to ensure that work that takes place on their refrigeration equipment is carried out by people with appropriate qualifications.”
The European Commission is unlikely to decide precisely what those qualifications are until 2008, but on a national level, the UK has agreed in principle that existing qualifications - City & Guilds 2078 and CITB Refrigeration Handling -will be accepted when the July 4 deadline is passed.
Penalties will be set by the department of trade and industry (DTI) in the UK to follow EU guidelines and to act as a deterrent. John Haffenden, managing director of Farm Refrigeration, one of the leading refrigeration companies in the fresh produce sector, said: “There are heavy penalties for the individuals who do not comply with the regulation. It is in every grower’s and packer’s interest to talk to us very soon about this and its cost implications to their business.”
All operators of refrigeration equipment that uses F gases must utilise all technically feasible measures available that do not entail disproportionate cost to prevent leakage of F gases and to repair any detected leakage as soon as possible. Any leakage repair must, by law, be checked within one month after the leak has been repaired to ensure that the repair has been effective.
In addition, there must be regular checking for leakage to a laid-down timetable.
Careful records of all this must be kept by the operator and these must include all relevant details - even the details of the contractor who carried out the work.
The regulation states that the operator or owner of the equipment is “the natural or legal person exercising actual power over the technical functioning of the equipment and systems covered by this regulation”. In other words, the company owning or operating the refrigeration equipment is responsible but can appoint a qualified contractor to carry out the necessary work on its behalf.
“In practice, it may well be that operators of equipment will pass this work to their qualified refrigeration engineers, but there is a grey area here as to who is actually responsible and this will be need to be clarified in service contracts,” said Nankivell.
“The bare minimum that end users should be doing is determining how much refrigerant their equipment is using and considering an audit to find out what falls within the scope of the new regulation.
