## 3 WEEE and ELV Management and Circular Economy
### Reuse of HFCs: Circular Economy  
Despite being efficient in eliminating F-gases and fully or partially reducing their harmful effects on the environment, destruction processes may contribute to the release of GHGs. The quota systems imposed by the current F-gas legislations increased the pressure on the HFC supply chain and led to a rise in the prices of virgin refrigerants newly placedon the market. In this context, in some cases the reusing of valuable refrigerants recovered from EoL equipment has clear advantages over their destruction (Figure 1). Moreover, destruction facilities are not located close to most industries and waste management facilities and do not exist in every country. Consequently, great amounts of F-gases are transported through long distances, drastically increasing costs (estimated EUR 0.10 per ton per kilometer in the EU [41]), the environmental impact (average emission value of 62 gCO2 per tonne of transported cargo per km [52]), and the chances of unintentional release of the transported gases. On the contrary, it is easier and more feasible to install processing and recycling facilities close or on the same site where the F-gases are recovered (Figure 1). A quick and cheap way of reusing refrigerants consists of cleaning-up the old refrigerant and feeding it to the same system in which it has been used before. This approach, frequently named recycling, does not guarantee that the cleaned-up refrigerant conforms to the standards of new refrigerants [41]. This may be particularly problematic in the case of complex blends, which may contain HFCs, HFOs, and other gases. In systems presenting considerable leaks, the composition of the blends can change over time due to differences in the boiling points of their constituents. Thus, the simple reutilization of the refrigerant may be problematic in terms of performance, energy use, system maintenance, and costs, due to changes in the refrigerant composition and to the presence of impurities. A more advantageous approach is to use reclaimed refrigerants, defined by the EU as the ones that were recovered from EoL equipment and were reprocessed to meet the parameters of virgin substances, considering its intended use [23]. The reclaimed F-gases need to meet the requirements of the AHRI Standard 700 (2019) for their reuse, which are: (i) a purity of \(\geq 98\%\), (ii) presence in the vapor phase of less than 1.5% by volume (at 25 \({}^{\circ}\)C) of non-condensable impurities, and (iii) presence in the liquid phase of less than 10 ppm by weight of water, less than 0.5% by weight of all other volatile impurities, less than 0.01% by volume or weight of high boiling residue, less than 1 ppm by weight of acidity (as HCl), and non-visually detectable presence of particles/solids and chloride [53]. Under the EU F-gas regulations, only virgin refrigerants (not reclaimed) that are placed on the market are included in the quotas. Thus, the utilization of reclaimed HFCs contributes to reducing the pressure on the virgin HFC supply chain, reducing the industry's dependence on costly high GWP refrigerants, and achieving the HFC phase-down goals (Figure 1). Up until now, virgin refrigerants were freely available at a low cost and therefore reusing refrigerants was not often considered. However, in the EU the first significant reduction in the quota took place in 2018 and the next one will occur in 2021. Therefore, the industry's ability to reduce, reuse, and innovate is vital for the transition to a restricted market. As HFC phase-down progresses, the utilization of reclaimed F-gases is increasing. According to the 2020 EEA report on fluorinated greenhouse gases, the reported reclaimed HFCs now make up 8% (9% as CO2 eq) of the produced amount or 3% (4% as CO2 eq) of the EU supply of virgin HFCs (Figure 3) [18]. While 97% of reclaimed amounts are HFCs, SF6 contributed to about 20% (GWP) of reclaimed gas [25]. However, there is no obligation in the EU to report the reclaimed F-gases, which can make it harder to evaluate the current situation.