The Fourth Meeting of the Parties urged the Parties to encourage recovery, recycling and reclamation of halons in order to meet the needs of all Parties, particularly those operating under paragraph 1 of Article 5 of the Protocol; and to call upon Parties importing recovered or recycled substances in Group II of Annex A to apply, when deciding on the use of those substances, the essential-use criteria set out in the 1991 report of the Halons Technical Options Committee. The purpose of these criteria is to minimize the use of halons in non-essential applications.
(UNEP/OzL.Pro/4/15 Decision IV/26 (paras. 1, 2).
The Fourth Meeting of the Parties requested the Industry and Environment Programme Activity Centre of the United Nations Environment Programme to function as a clearing-house for information relevant to international halon bank management and further request the Centre to liaise with and coordinate its activities with the Implementing Agencies designated under the Financial Mechanism to encourage Parties to provide pertinent information to the clearing-house.
(UNEP/OzL.Pro/4/15 Decision IV/26, para. 4).
The Thirteenth Meeting of the Executive Committee recommended that UNEP and UNDP should examine arrangements that could be made for a regional or national approach to halon recycling and banking, depending on the specific circumstances of the country involved.
(UNEP/OzL.Pro/ExCom/13/47, para. 101).
The Seventeenth Meeting of the Executive Committee decided:
(a) to request the Secretariat to prepare, for consideration by the Executive Committee at its Eighteenth Meeting, draft guidelines for halon banking based on activities at a regional, country or enterprise level, which could include requirements for a regulatory framework, taking into account information provided by the Halon Technical Options Committee and any experience with this issue that Parties might make available to it;
(b) that projects would be evaluated in the light of the guidelines referred to in subparagraph (a) above.
(UNEP/OzL.Pro/ExCom/17/60, Decision 17/5 para. 13a and b).
The Eighteenth Meeting of the Executive Committee decided:
(a) to approve on an interim basis the guidelines as follows:
(i) countries with installed capacities exceeding 250 MT of Halon 1301 and 1,000 MT of Halon 1211 should be classified as countries with a high-level of installed capacity and should qualify for reclamation facilities for Halon 1301 and Halon 1211, respectively;
(ii) countries with a medium level of installed capacity (250 MT of Halon 1301 and 1,000 MT of Halon 1211) should be classified for servicing requirements with Halon 1211 and Halon 1301 recycling and recovery machines. The number will depend on national conditions, but Halon 1301 and Halon 1211 recycling and recovery machines depend on the size of country and the location of main/critical users;
(iii) countries with a low level of installed capacity should qualify for a one time funding of US $25,000 which can be used for the acquisition of recycling equipment or as an incentive to recover halons from existing systems, or the establishment of exchange programmes to be decided by the country;
(iv) the brokerage function of identifying sources of supply for those with an identified need should be handled by a steering committee consisting of authorities, the fire protection industry, and main users;
(v) regulations facilitating production and import bans should be established within six months after the reclamation centre is set up; and
(vi) halon banking operations could be established for eligible countries. The costs for providing capital equipment and management range from US $250,000 to US $500,000. Funds for Halon 1211/Halon 1301 reclamation centres could, if appropriate, be provided on a concessional basis containing a 25 per cent grant component;
(b) to consider for intersessional approval, bilateral co-operation projects that had been previously submitted, for demonstration purposes on the basis of a full grant component;
(c) to consider at its next Meeting, the approval of two demonstration projects per region for countries with a low level of installed capacity, as defined in the interim guidelines, at a proposed level of US $70,000 per country; and
(d) that, in order to facilitate a final decision by the Executive Committee on halon-banking guidelines, the Secretariat and the Implementing Agencies should closely monitor these projects as a basis for assessing the interim guidelines in terms of their commercial viability and their financial impact of on the Fund, and for assessing the possibility of establishing a regional halon-banking programme, including the possibility of a concessional loan component.
(UNEP/OzL.Pro/ExCom/18/75, Decision 18/22, para. 51.).
(Supporting document: UNEP/OzL.Pro/ExCom/18/16).
The Twenty-eighth Meeting of the Executive Committee decided to request UNEP to pursue its efforts to make halon bank management clearing-house services even more cost-effective and to report to the Twenty-ninth Meeting of the Executive Committee.
(UNEP/OzL.Pro/ExCom/28/57, Decision 28/13, para. 27(d)).