Heaptalk, Jakarta — Recoolit has developed a platform to empower air conditioner (AC) technicians with tools and incentives for sustainable refrigerant collection and disposal. This effort aims to tackle the environmental dangers of refrigerants in ACs.
Refrigerants are a complicated and precise topic, with limited knowledge about them. Air conditioners are essential in Indonesia and worldwide, primarily in hot countries. They have a strong environmental impact, and refrigerants play a significant role in this impact.
These chemicals can be found in every air conditioner, from a small unit in houses to a big chiller system that might be cooling down hotels or office buildings. If it leaks, it will be filled back up. Sometimes, the valve will open, dump the refrigerants, and refill it to ensure it is not contaminated or dirty.
Providing dashboard and certificate
“We are trying to change that because actually, refrigerants are a really huge contributor to climate change here in Indonesia. And we are basically helping the industry learn about refrigerants, learn about how to use these refrigerants in a way that is still sustainable. And so what we do is there are a lot of situations where someone might dump out the refrigerant and just let it go out into the air,” stated Louis Potok, Recoolit CEO and founder, in a discussion with Poempida Hidayatulloh, an environmental activist, on the Forum Carbon Indonesia Youtube channel.
In more detail, Recoolit adopts a buyback program by incentivizing technicians to participate. Potok highlighted that this app is designed for air conditioner technicians, not users or consumers. Indonesia has 280 million people and perhaps 15,000 AC technicians, making teaching technicians about this issue much more manageable than the public. “The point is to make it as easy as possible and even make a little bit of money for everyone to do the right thing and manage the refrigerant responsibly and sustainably,” he added.
Training and logistical support for collecting the chemicals and guidance for using the app will be provided. Technicians pump the chemicals into cylinders and record their activity through Recoolit’s mobile-first application by photographing the system, nameplate, and setup. This platform immediately gives results on emissions reduction. It also provides a dashboard and a certificate, which technicians can show their customers as proof of sustainable disposal. This is expected to help them earn customer loyalty, trust, and repeat business.
