Given the outsize impact of f-gases on the environment, “my belief is that appliances [with f-gas refrigerants] are the most important thing a person could ever recycle,” said Michael Helme, Co-Founder and Lead Volunteer of New Yorkers for Cool Refrigerant Management (NY4Cool).
Formed in 2020, NY4Cool is a grassroots group dedicated to preventing refrigerant pollution through community action such as appliance recycling drives, operating mostly in Orange and Ulster Counties in New York State, just north of New York City.
The volunteer group is one of the few in the U.S. – if not the only one – with a focus on preventing emissions of fluorinated refrigerants from home appliances like air conditioners, refrigerators and dehumidifiers. (This does not include home heat pumps and split or ducted AC systems, for which refrigerants must be reclaimed by a certified technician on site.) NY4Cool also advocates for faster adoption of natural refrigerant-based HVAC&R systems and equipment.
“If you burn a pound of gasoline, it will create 3.25 pounds of carbon dioxide,” Helme said at a press conference in 2024. “If you release a pound of R410A into the atmosphere, it will act like more than 4,000 pounds of carbon dioxide [equivalent] over the next 20 years – and a single air conditioner could have a pound or two of R410A.”
On November 6, Helme, his NY4Cool group and six New York municipalities received the 2025 “Building Bridges Award” from the Hudson Valley Regional Council (HVRC) for their work in collecting and recycling hundreds of old refrigerant appliances via an initiative called the “Coolest Recycling Drive.”
Suzanne Hagell, Chief, GHG Mitigation Office, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), presented the award to Helme and the municipalities, which include the City of Kingston, Town of Chester, Town of Warwick, Town of New Paltz, Village of New Paltz and Village of Woodbury.
Underscoring the impact that refrigerant recycling can have, Helme noted at the awards ceremony that the town of New Paltz alone, which typically generates 400 metric tons of annual emissions from its municipal buildings, prevented the emissions of 160 metric tons of CO2e as a result of the 2025 appliance drive. “It was so easy to do,” he said. “We had 10 volunteers who worked at three drop-off events, each four hours long, and we spent just a few hundred dollars.”
End-of-life emissions
In the U.S., the Clean Air Act prohibits individuals from intentionally venting ozone-depleting refrigerants and HFCs while maintaining, servicing, repairing or disposing of air-conditioning or refrigeration equipment. However, this regulation, as well as similar state rules, are difficult to enforce.
End-of-life emissions of HCFC and HFC refrigerants from retired equipment that could have been collected are estimated to account for 75 to 80 million metric tons of CO2e annually in the U.S., equivalent to emissions from 16 million cars, according to a 2019 report by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA). On top of that, Helme noted, there is a thriving international market in shipping old appliances to Asian countries, China in particular, where the refrigerant is likely vented.
But as a result of the U.S. AIM Act, which has devised a phasedown schedule for HFC production and import, the amount of reclaimed HFCs has grown from 5 million pounds (2.3 million kilograms) in 2017 to 12 million pounds (5.4 million kilograms) in 2024, according to the EPA. Beginning January 1, 2029, the servicing and/or repair of HFC-containing supermarket systems, refrigerated transport and automatic commercial ice makers must be done with reclaimed HFCs.
While local recycling transfer stations accept refrigerant-bearing appliances, they typically charge a fee and are not necessarily conveniently located; moreover, they usually don’t prioritize refrigerant reclaim. Helme came up with the idea of recycling drives to make the appliance drop-off process free and local during specified times of the year (typically the spring), thereby achieving more f-gas recovery.
The NY4Cool group emerged from a refrigerant management working group led by Sustainable Hudson Valley, a nonprofit under which NY4Cool still operates. The interest in refrigerant management was inspired by Project Drawdown, a major climate change initiative that identified refrigerant emissions reduction as one of the most important greenhouse gas remediation measures.
“A few of us wanted to keep discussing the topic of refrigerants,” said Helme, who formerly worked in support staff for a large law firm and translated Chinese medicine books on the side. “I didn’t have any background in [refrigerants]. I don’t know why I stuck to that group, but it somehow kind of appealed to me. And then it just seemed like we could really be doing something here.”
NY4Cool now has a mailing list of about 50 people, including professionals in HVAC&R and citizen activists like Helme. Christina Starr, Senior Manager, Climate for U.S. branch of the EIA, has been a major contributor to the group.
Earth Week launch
Helme launched the first Coolest Reycling Driven in 2023 during a two-week period encompassing Earth Week (April 14 to 22) in Warwick, New York, where he lives, in concert with a local nonprofit environmental group, Sustainable Warwick. The groups hired a refrigerant reclaimer, Interstate Refrigerant Recovery Inc. (IRRI), which charged $9 apiece. Compared to the inventory of appliances received, the recovered refrigerants totalled approximately 80% of the CO2e in the appliances, he said.
Helme publicized the drive through Sustainable Warwick and the town of Warwick, drawing from a diverse population. “The people who brought their appliances were not all the usual suspects who usually show up at the Sustainable Warwick events,” he said. “It didn’t matter their political stripe or economic status; it was just anybody with a piece of junk they wanted to get rid of.”
That initial drive received about 130 appliances and four refrigerant tanks. It prevented the equivalent of nearly 500,000lbs (226,796kg) of CO2e emissions (based on a 20-year GWP, the standard used in New York) and sent more than 4,000lbs (1,814kg) of metal for recycling, all for a net cost of about $900, according to the NY4Cool estimates.
“When they prevent another 100,000 pounds of CO2 equivalent [emissions], people go home feeling really good.”
Michael Helme, Lead Volunteer, New Yorkers for Cool Refrigerant Management
In 2024, Hudson Technologies, a refrigerant reclamation company based in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey, offered to provide refrigerant recovery work at no charge for the 2024 Cooling Recycling Drive. This enabled the NY4Cool, Sustainable Warwick and Sustainable Hudson Valley, to team up with numerous community organizations and hold an expanded Coolest Recycling Drive in the spring in Orange and Ulster counties. The drive collected 500 appliances, said Helme.
In October 2024 another collection effort was held in Woodbury, New York, and surrounding communities, which netted 26 air conditioners, 16 refrigerators and seven dehumidifiers, according to NY4Cool.
In 2025, the spring recycling drive in the six award-winning communities in Orange and Ulster Counties collected about 435 appliances; assuming a conservative recovery rate of 50% of the refrigerant, this accounts for about 335 metric tons of CO2e, equivalent to driving 78 gas-powered automobiles for one year, said NY4Cool. For the reclamation work, NY4Cool hired JGS Recycling & Hauling, which charged $3 apiece for appliances (typically ACs) hauled away for scrap, and $7 apiece for other appliances.
Helme has collaborated with the local Lions Club to publicize and support the recycling drives, resulting in a spike of appliance drop-offs. “That’s just been very gratifying, working with the Lions Club,” he said.
NY4Cool has also partnered with local Climate Smart Community groups, part of a program started by the New York State DEC for municipal governments to promote climate-related mitigation and adaptation efforts. Appliance recycling drives earn these communities recognition “points” under the general educational umbrella toward getting certified as a Climate Smart Community by the state, said Eleanor Peck, Deputy Executive Director for the HVRC.
Incentivizing reclaim
Because recycling transfer stations often don’t prioritize refrigerant-bearing appliances, Helme plans to lobby for state funding that would incentivize them to do reclamation work. “Then the refrigerant recovery work is all paid for, and all they have to do is line the appliances up and get the scrap metal money at the end,” he said. “It becomes a cash-flow positive thing for the transfer station. So they want to do as much of it as they can.”
NY4Cool also supports the eventual adoption in New York of an extended producer responsibility program for refrigerants that will make recovery, reclamation and destruction a standard practice overseen by the producers of refrigerants and equipment.
While grassroots drives like those implemented by NY4Cool are rare outside of New York, the group has posted a recycling guide on its website for others to follow. ‘I’d like to see it take off, but it hasn’t,” said Helme.
He finds that volunteers enjoy participating in appliance-recycling drives. “People are so frustrated about what they can do about the climate crisis,” he said. “But when they prevent another 100,000 pounds of CO2 equivalent [emissions], people go home feeling really good. I wish more people had that feeling.”
