My take on R134a and venting is pretty simple:
It's the EXACT SAME CHEMICAL that is used in canned air dusters; yes, really .
Quote:
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Many gas dusters contain HFC-134a (tetrafluoroethane), which is widely used as a propellant and refrigerant.
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The entire fill on most AC systems of a modern car are less than two cans of "duster" and plenty of "hair spray" type of products use the same as their propellent.
I have no problem whatever with a shade tree venting every 5-6 years during a major AC overhaul any more than I would have a problem with using R134a for chasing dust off a camera lens.
The product also is sold for freezing pipes where an entire can of 16oz is dumped onto a water pipe to freeze the pipe.
Clearly if the product is used very commonly as a propellent and for freezing things it is not a big global warming gas When used in a non-commercial way.
It's good that commercial use is regulated because shops that do 100s of AC repairs concentrate that quantity and it's a lot of needless gas venting that regardless your "political motivation" behind the global warming viewpoint it's just plain pollution simple as that.
We all polite, all day every day, minimize as you can but put the effort where it counts. 12-16oz of R134a venting to the atmosphere every few years is *not where it counts* it's absolutely negligible, your farts are literally 1000s of times worse on average.
Since I do manage a few family cars and happen to have a vacuum pump to evacuate and have a use for R134a products (pipe freezing and chasing dust), I've used cans of R134a for "dusting" because they don't have the "bitterant" that makes them WORTHLESS for cleaning as you just sprayed "skunk" on whatever you tried to clean.
Rather than buy "canned air" I'm going to try to recycle any "freon" I pull from cars, it just delays the inevitable but why just waste what I can use purposefully!?
Where does that captured R134a go? Logically it would go into those dusting cans but they would have to be able to clean in to remove the carcinogens etc.
Oh: fun aside: "green gas" for airsoft rifles is PROPANE. Don't believe me? Shoot your airsoft rifle over an open flame! Mine makes a beautiful flame puff about 10" long and when shot in slow motion is awesome!