The Washington State Department of Ecology fined The Home Depot $1.6 million on Wednesday for selling products containing hydrofluorocarbons, “super pollutants” mainly used for refrigeration and air conditioning that the state banned the sale of due to their contributions to climate change.
Evelyn Fornes, a spokesperson for the home improvement retailer, declined to comment on the penalty, citing ongoing litigation. The company has 30 days to pay the penalty or appeal to the state’s Pollution Control Hearings Board, the ecology department said in a statement Thursday.
Department spokesperson Caroline Halter said the company had not filed an appeal as of Friday.
“If The Home Depot decides to go this route, we are confident that the penalty in this case will withstand legal challenge and welcome the opportunity to defend Washington’s [hydrofluorocarbon] restrictions,” Halter said in an email Friday.
The department said it has spent nearly three years trying to get manufacturers and retailers to comply with laws passed in 2019 and 2021 restricting the sale and use of hydrofluorocarbon products in Washington. The potent greenhouse gas can leak into the atmosphere from faulty or damaged equipment and can be thousands of times more damaging than carbon dioxide, the department said.
Despite a restriction that went into effect in July 2021, the department said The Home Depot continued selling canisters containing R-134a — a hydrofluorocarbon refrigerant often used in car air conditioning systems — to online customers in Washington.
The ecology department said it made “numerous attempts” between 2021 and 2023 to get The Home Depot to comply with the new state restrictions, including a 2022 meeting during which company officials said they would no longer sell hydrofluorocarbon products in Washington or add new products containing the gas to the company’s website, according to the department’s statement.
But a routine compliance check in July 2023 revealed the company was still selling the products to online shoppers in Washington, Halter said.
The Home Depot’s sales figures showed the company had sold 1,058 units of the prohibited products in Washington between April 12, 2022, and Sept. 5, 2023, Halter said.
Halter said the department issued The Home Depot a notice of violation in December for selling what amounted to between 783 and 1,322 pounds of R-134a, the equivalent of between 515,000 and 859,3000 pounds of coal burned.
The Home Depot initially faced nearly $10.6 million in fines, with a $10,000 penalty per violation. The department reduced the penalty to $1,500 per violation because of the company’s “prompt disclosure of units sold,” the department said.
Hydrofluorocarbons are building up in the atmosphere and could increase to nearly 20% of global greenhouse emissions by 2050 if their use isn’t stopped, according to the department.
“Restricting [hydrofluorocarbon] products and equipment is key to achieving the state’s statutory greenhouse gas emission limits,” Joel Creswell, who manages the department’s Climate Pollution Reduction Program, said in the statement. “When they leak out, they become a major contributor to climate change.”
