Why reclaim plants are short of recovered refrigerant

Talk to people who run reclaim and recycling operations and the same point keeps coming up: the capacity to reprocess refrigerant is not the problem. Getting enough recovered refrigerant through the door is.

Where is the recovered refrigerant?

All along the chain, in small quantities:

• •wholesalers and distributors hold returned cylinders from contractors;
• •importers sit on off-spec lots;
• •service companies fill recovery cylinders every week during maintenance, retrofits and strip-outs;
• •equipment owners decommission systems during a refurbishment, a closure or a switch to another refrigerant.

Each of them holds some gas. Few hold enough to justify a shipment on their own.

Why does the refrigerant stay where it is?

Because small lots cost more to collect than they are worth. For a large lot, distance barely matters: moving a full load across Europe is a small part of its value. For a few cylinders, the sums look different.

A carrier registered on the VIHB list, a waste stream number, a consignment note, transport under the ADR and an analysis on arrival: these are largely fixed costs per collection, whether it is 10 kilograms or 1,000.

On top of that, the value of a cylinder is only known after analysis. A cylinder with no history may hold clean R404A, or a mixture that can only be destroyed. If you have to pay for collection up front without knowing what is inside, you would rather wait.

The result: cylinders sit in a warehouse for months, or the refrigerant goes to destruction when it could have been reclaimed.

Why is this becoming more urgent?

Two things are happening at once. The HFC quota almost halves in 2027, which makes refrigerant outside the quota more valuable. And because of the servicing bans, reclaimed or recycled gas is the only legal supply of R404A and R507A for servicing existing refrigeration equipment until 2030.

Demand for reclaimed refrigerant is rising, while supply stays fragmented.

What fixes it?

Aggregation. Someone has to find the volume, make it worth collecting and hand it to the processor with the documentation already in order. In practice, that means:

• •combining lots from different sources into collection runs that pay;
• •recording up front what is in a cylinder and where it came from;
• •arranging the waste stream number, consignment note and transport in one go;
• •giving the contractor or owner clarity on the price of each lot upfront, so disposal costs as little as possible.

It is unglamorous logistics and compliance work, which is exactly why it is under-built. Quota market experience helps: knowing who holds what, how prices move as the cap tightens, and which counterparties can legally take the gas.

What can you do as a contractor?

A few habits make your recovered refrigerant worth more and easier to collect. Use a separate recovery cylinder for each refrigerant, because a mixture can usually only be destroyed. When filling, note the refrigerant type, the equipment and the address. Weigh the cylinder before and after. And collect a few full cylinders rather than many half-empty ones: it lowers the collection cost per kilogram.