OLYMPIA, Wash. —
The Washington Department of Ecology issued a $1.6 million penalty to The Home Depot for continuing to sell restricted hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) products after state regulations went into effect in 2021.
HFCs are a greenhouse gas used mainly for refrigeration and air conditioning that may leak into the atmosphere when equipment is damaged.
The Washington Legislature began phasing out the use of HFCs in 2019 and the Department of Ecology has been working with manufacturers and retailers to aid in the compliance with laws as they are being made.
One of the restrictions banned the sale of R-134a canisters at retail stores beginning in July 2021. R-134a is an HFC refrigerant used in automotive air conditioning systems and is identified to have a global warming risk 1,430 times that of carbon dioxide according to the Washington Department of Ecology.
Vehicle manufacturers have largely switched to products with lower climate impacts and Washington limits the sale of R-134a so that the maintenance and repair of air conditioning systems happens at shops that can properly collect and recycle the refrigerant.
“Restricting HFC products and equipment is key to achieving the state’s statutory greenhouse gas emission limits and ultimately getting to net zero by 2050,” said Joel Creswell, who manages Ecology’s Climate Pollution Reduction Program. “HFCs safely sealed inside air-conditioning systems can be recovered, recycled and re-used, but when they leak out, they become a major contributor to climate change.”
Despite roughly two years of attempts to bring The Home Depot into compliance, the company continued to offer and sell R-134a canisters to customers on its website.
In 2022 the Department of Ecology met with The Home Depot’s website software and compliance teams and was told that the restricted products would no longer be available. But in July of 2023, they found that R-134a was still being offered through the company’s website.
The Department of Ecology requested information regarding the potential sales and The Home Depot admitted to having sold 1,058 units of the prohibited product between April of 2022 and September of 2023.
Under Washington law, the company could have faced penalties of up to $10,000 per violation, but based on the prompt disclosure of units sold, the penalty was reduced to $1,500 per violation. The company will be given 30 days to appeal the penalty to Washington’s Pollution Control Hearings Board.
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