Refrigerant Management Canada increases levy on HCFCs and HFCs

Refrigerant Management Canada (RMC), the self-sustaining program developed by the industry to collect, manage and destroy harmful refrigerants used in the HVAC/R industry, has announced that the environmental levy on the sales of new and reclaimed HCFCs or HCFC blends, as well as HFCs and HFC blends sold into the Canadian HVAC/R and stationary sectors will increase as follows:

• HCFC Levy will increase by $0.50, increasing the levy rate to $5.00 per kg.
• HFC Levy will increase by $0.50, increasing the levy rate to $1.50 per kg.

A not-for-profit corporation run as a subsidiary of the Heating, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Institute of Canada (HRAI), RMC celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2020. In late 2020 the RMC Board of Directors conducted an in-depth analysis of the program, and upon review of the volumes of refrigerant, the impact resulting from the import prohibition of HCFCs in 2020, refrigerant inventories and industry trends, it was determined that an increase in the HCFC and HFC levies are required to ensure the RMC Program has sufficient funds to handle the anticipated volume of refrigerants over the next couple of years.

Since its founding, RMC has collected and destroyed over 4.0 million kg. of surplus refrigerant waste.

To date, the cost to collect and properly dispose of the surplus refrigerant has been in excess of $70 million or $3.5 million per year of operation.

RMC continues to provide-the HVAC/R industry with a solution to comply with Halocarbon P2 Plan, regulated by Environment and Climate Change Canada. The P2 Plan requires all importers of halocarbon refrigerants used in the stationary sector to be part of a stewardship program to manage the refrigerants through to end of life.

Refrigerant Management Canada