If you handle the odd refrigerated container, you could be in for a nasty surprise.
[Note, this article was produced in 2012 when there were some serious problems. I recontacted sources six years on who said the problem had been largely addressed. They didn't claim it wouldn't come back though.]
When a reefer exploded in Vietnam, engineers were left scratching their heads. There didn’t seem to be any reason why something with a small, lightweight power unit and some inert gas should have provided such a spectacular (and dangerous) show.
Others followed, some fatal and investigations made the mystery deeper; sometimes a wispy gas that combusted with little excuse, a sludge and an absence of the aluminium components of the compressor.
Something was wrong.
The culprit, it turned out, was the refrigerant gas itself. Not the standard R134a that was supposed to be in the refrigerated unit, but a rogue (and nasty) refrigerant known as chloromethane or R40.
“We initially thought the situation was isolated to Vietnam,” says Rob Morgan, Chair of the Climate Control Companies Association here in New Zealand. “We know now it is wider.”
There were reefer incidents in Asia and South America. The rogue refrigerant cropped up in aircon systems in cars and military vehicles in a number of countries, in other situations and even in seemingly ‘legit’ cylinders of R134a.
“Initially the shipping industry thought it was confined to Vietnam,” says Tony Maxwell of Pinnacle Corporation, container maintenance specialists. “We produced data to show it was a worldwide problem. And not confined to the shipping industry.”
The good side of R40 is that it is much cheaper than the recommended gas. That is about as far as the good news goes. The impostor is toxic and can lead to dizziness, confusion, even paralysis and coma if you breathe enough of it. It doesn’t restrict bad effects to living beings either; R40 literally dissolves aluminium, the material refrigeration units are made from. So sooner or later the unit will pack up. If you are lucky.
If not, a fire or explosion could be coming your way especially if the refrigerant gas is exposed to the air through damage or servicing. Not content with being flammable in its own right R40 dissolves aluminium to create Trimethylaluminum, a highly unstable substance that is explosive upon contact with air.
Reefers with rogue R40 have been described as ‘ticking time bombs’.
So how does the wrong stuff get into the world’s reefers, how many are affected and what can be done about it? More important, could they be in our New Zealand supply chains?
According to international insurer TT Club; “Contamination with R40 is thought to affect less than 0.2% of the world reefer container fleet of 1.3 million units.” That is still around 2,500.
“Most of these potentially contaminated units are now isolated but it remains important that the industry acts together to ensure this low level of contamination does not increase and that the use of fake gas is eliminated.”
It seems that the motivation is cost saving. With R40 so much cheaper than R1234a the temptation is there to put at least some of the wrong stuff in. “Ideally the refrigerant will never be replaced as it lasts the life of the unit,” says Morgan. “In reality it gets topped up and replaced.”
That does not have to happen overseas either. “You could import a container of refrigerants … if you wanted to. It isn't regulated like it is in Australia,” warns Rob Morgan.
He does concede that the new inclusion of refrigerant gases into the Emissions Trading Scheme will impose some much needed record keeping but it is far short of full regulation. It is the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff.
However knowledgeable members of the industry are aware of the issue and have been acting. “Fonterra implemented control processes as soon as the problem was exposed,” says Bruce Mulligan, president of NZ Cold Storage Association. All container numbers were checked against a database of at risk containers before they could be used.
The CCCA issued a safety bulletin and the Ministry of Business Innovation and Technology’s Labour unit published a hazard notice last year. “If a suspect container could have R40 you need to have someone come in and ... carry out some documented test procedures,” advises Morgan. The CCCA also advises that if someone suspects R40 contamination, they should report it to the Dept of Labour (renamed MBIE) due to the health and safety threat.
A cold store operator I contacted said they had “checks in place” to make sure their refrigerated containers were safe from contamination.
So are we in the clear here in Godzone?
“There do not appear to have been any incidents in NZ where fires or explosions occurred,” says Bruce Mulligan. However Rob Morgan is more cautionary; “The reefers found have different [concentrations] of R40, so the refrigeration units will break down at different rates. Could be 1 year, could be 5 years. It is an unclear risk. Perhaps some not for 10 years.”
We are not all as aware of the need for vigilance as we should be. A major general transport operator I contacted said they were not aware of the reefer R40 risk issue at all.
Yet we may not have escaped entirely. According to an industry source some refrigerated containers have been found with R40 in New Zealand. They are “quarantined in yards” but the operators are “too embarrassed” to be publicly identified. Apparently it is a commercially sensitive issue so no one is prepared to talk.
“With counterfeit goods it is really difficult to know how long there is a market for them. There could be counterfeit R134a with all sorts of things in there, including R40,” says Maxwell.
It seems that, like R40 itself, the issue is colourless and odourless. Until something happens.
This article first appeared in FTD in 2012. It caused quite a stir, including record levels of engagement with readers, levels never seen in the magazine's history, before or since.
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