Page 11 - Climate Control News Aug-Sep 2020

New safety laws for air conditioners
News
Billions lost in cold chain wasteland
THE AUSTRALIAN FOOD Cold Chain Council (AFCCC) is working on a number of initiatives to improve cold chain processes in Australia, which has a poor record in food safety under refrigeration.
AFCCC chair, Mark Mitchell, said rising lev- els of national food wastage is due to poor tem- perature management.
Mitchell said Australia will need to adopt se- rious training and education programs so that those responsible for moving food and pharma- ceuticals around the country can get the best out of a perfectly good technology.
He said refrigeration has become such a criti- cally important part of modern life but it is in need of serious attention.
“Because of the vast distances in this coun- try, food transport is a series of refrigerated events, in the hands of a range of stakeholders, many of whom don't understand how it all works,” Mitchell said.
“Mangoes picked in the Northern Territory may be handled through stationary and mobile refrigerated spaces as many as 14 times by multi-
ple owners on a 3,400 km journey to Melbourne.
“If temperature abuse through poor refrigera- tion practices occurs in
AFCCC chair, Mark Mitchell.
Food transport is a series of refrigerated events.
people engaged in the in- dustry – from those work- ing in the loading docks, to transport drivers and ship- ment managers.
just one of those spaces, the losses at the con- sumer end are compounded, and shelf life can be either drastically reduced, or result in the whole load being sent to landfill.”
A recent government sponsored study re- vealed that cold chain failures cost the Austral- ian economy nearly $4 billion a year at farm gate values. Add to that the impact of that wastage on energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, and even the most skeptical would have to acknowledge that something needs to be done urgently to improve the cold chain.
Mitchell said the biggest challenge facing in- dustry is finding a way to explain efficient refrig- eration processes to such a wide assortment of
The AFCCC believes it will take a combination of serious training and edu- cation and a far-reaching new Code of Practice, which the council is now working on in conjunction players.
with other industry
“Also urgently needed is a more open cul-
ture of data transparency which government bodies urgently need to quantify more accu- rately the cost of food waste to the economy and develop initiatives to help reduce waste,” Mitchell said.
On a global scale, the United Nations claims food loss and waste cost up to $940 bil- lion per year.
The UN said one-third of all food is lost or wasted worldwide as it moves from where it is produced to where it is eaten.
This waste takes place even though more than 800 million people are undernourished.
THE NSW GOVERNMENT has made all air conditioners using flammable refrigerants “de- clared articles” from July 1, 2020.
This means that air conditioners using flam- mable refrigerants cannot be sold or traded in NSW without official certification by the state government.
This certification, which includes local inde- pendent testing, must be provided and approved by the government prior to any sale.
The new regulation – which states that flam- mable refrigerants are Class 2 or Class 3 but not Class 2L (R32 is 2L) – is based on International Standard ISO 817.
A spokesperson for NSW Fair Trading said air conditioners incorporating flammable refriger- ants are now “declared articles” as they have spe- cific and different risks to a normal air conditioner.
“In 2018 they were introduced into the de-
clared list with a date of application of July 1, 2020, this delay was in order to allow traders to seek cer- tification,” the spokesper- son said.
“Past this date it may be a breach of the Act to sell such an article without certification.”
The spokesperson said certification can be gained through Fair Trading, an interstate regulator, or one of 10 independent cer- tifiers recognised by NSW.
He said there are some electrical articles that are also ‘declared’ and must comply with local standards before being sold in Australia.
ABOVE: Flammable refrigerants are Class 2 and Class 3, not Class 2L.
CLIMATE CONTROL NEWS AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2020
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