Protest against refrigerator manufacturers taking
Indians for a cool ride….

“Boycott refrigerators of MNCs practicing double standards”, was the strong message given by a large number of social activists and school children during a rally organised by Jaipur-based Consumer Unity & Trust Society (CUTS) at Jaipur on the occasion of “Ozone Day” celebrated every year on September 16, 2000.

This peaceful rally was flagged off form Panch Batti on M. I. Road at around 1030 hrs. A funeral procession of the environmentally unfriendly refrigerator was carried out and participants carrying placards and banners protested against double standards being followed by the multinational refrigerator manufactures.

“CUTS recognises the importance of awareness amongst consumers about the double standards being practiced by companies like LG, Samsung, Electrolux and Whirlpool et al with respect to the use of technology in the area of refrigeration, when it comes producing refrigerators in India and Europe”, said Mr. Sandeep Tetarwal of CUTS, on the occasion. “These companies are even promoting their refrigerators as environment friendly, under the pretext of using ODS-free technology. Hardly, any Indian consumer knows that these manufacturers are actually using HFC-based technology, which leads to global warming”, explained his colleague Mr. K.S. Sajeev.

Interestingly these manufacturers are producing refrigerators popularly known as ECOFRIGS) using hydrocarbon technology, which is ozone friendly and more importantly has negligible global warming potential for the consumption of European consumers. 

The tragedy of the Indian consumer is that these multinational refrigerator manufactures, in spite of having the capacity and know-how to produce refrigerator using this technology are not doing so in India. This implies that they have slightest regard for Indian consumers and more so for the future generations that would be affected due to negative impacts of Global warming.

The Jaipur based non-governmental organisation, CUTS is actively involved in information dissemination, awareness building, and lobbying with the industry and the government on sustainable consumption and production with particular focus on ecofriendly technologies. As a civil society group, CUTS has planned a series of events to hit the double standards in refrigeration sector educate the people the issues of ozone depletion and global warming.

Today’s rally was a part of these events only and similar rallies were carried out in all major cities of the country.

Information kits were distributed to the participants of the rally to give the participants of the rally a more thorough understanding about various environmental friendlier technologies in the area of refrigeration and the efforts made by multinationals to adopt the same worldover. An appeal was made to the participants to not only register their protests, individually, to these companies, but also to generate awareness in their neighborhood on these critical issues.