(photo = http://aidisocialindia.blogspot.com/2015/09/sept-16-international-day-for.html)

September 16 was the International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer. After going through a major fine dust problem, people in Korea are paying more attention to environmental issues such as air pollution, which is severe in Korea. However, no one really talks about ozone layers. The hole in the ozone layer was a shock to a vast majority of people in Korea. I still remember the news on TV about the hole when I was a kid. The first thing that comes in mind when someone says ?air pollution? would be ozone layer. How did that change over just a few years? Why and how is the ozone layer important to us? What can we do to protect it?

(photo = Wikipedia)

The chemistry of ozone layer lies behind three atoms of oxygen. These molecules float around 24~32km above the Earth?s surface. They are clustered together at about 25km above us and form a layer called the ?ozone layer?. This layer absorbs the UV rays coming from the sun just before it reaches the earth. If this function does not work properly, it slows the growth of plankton in the sea and photosynthesis of the crops on land. It also causes illnesses such as skin cancer, blindness, and breathing disability for human beings. After the discovery of ozone depletion, people were shocked and took action to recover it. We made a lot of progress and it was eventually being recovered. However, researches recently found that we are starting to harm the ozone layer again.

(photo = https://www.slideshare.net/ozonaction/addressing-hfcs-under-the-montreal-protocol-and-indous-task-force-on-hfcs)

The chemical elements in our cooling system for refrigerators such as HFCs, HCFCs, and CFCs cause greenhouse effect 140~11,700 times stronger than CO2s. The Ministry of Environment in Korea announced that all companies selling products such as refrigerators should submit forms that show how much of HFC, HCFC, and CFC is used in the product and how much it is being checked to prevent and leaks of the elements. This will help decrease the amount of destroying ozone layer by using HFC, HCFC, and CFC just about the amount that you need. This law is to be effective from June, 2019.

(photo = Korea JoongAng Daily)

Another big problem is coming upon us. The layer of tropospheric ozone around the middle latitude is getting thinner. The tropospheric ozone is the layer closest to human life and without it, we will have the same severe problems like the ones we would have with ozone depletion. The middle latitude is where most of human population lives. If we are unlucky, we would experience something even worse than that at a faster rate. This is happening because of a substance called dichloromethane. These substances die quickly at spots not far away from its origin like the tropospheric ozone and only affect that ozone.

The hole of ozone is being recovered, but at the same time, the ozone layer above us is becoming thinner. This is a cycle that we have caused from our will to live a better life, but have gone too far. We need to fix this issue now to save the earth for our future generations.