Something doesn't quite add up in my mind - I must be missing something, please help HN...

So a regular home refrigerator has about 60 grams of R600a in it. It has a global warming potential of 3. That means if you illegally vent it to the atmosphere, you are doing the same environmental harm as venting 180 grams of CO2.

However, if you hire a trained technician to extract the gas for you, and he drives 10 km to get to your house, then his van (a brand new average van getting 158 g/CO2 per km) will emit 1580 grams of CO2.

Considering this, it seems crazy to bother regulating this stuff.