methyl bromide

Pesticide gas used to fumigate soil. It is a major ozone depleter. Industry produces 50,000 tonnes of methyl bromide annually (1995). The European Union (EU) promised a 25% reduction in manufacture by 1998, and the USA intends to ban use by 2001. The EU proposed a total ban on usage by 2001 at a meeting in July 1998. Some countries, however, have failed to significantly reduce their ozone-depleting emissions, such as China, which at the end of 1999 was producing 10% of the world's methyl bromide.