• Your love for decaffeinated tea or coffee may have led to ozone depletion, say scientists who found that a chemical commonly used in the food industry delayed recovery of the atmosphere’s protective layer by up to 30 years.
• Researchers from Lancaster University in the U.K. found that a previously ignored chemical called dichloromethane may now be contributing to ozone depletion and should be looked at to improve future ozone predictions.
• Dichloromethane is a man-made ozone-depleting chemical that is used in the food industry, to decaffeinate coffee and tea as well as to prepare extracts of hops and other flavourings.
• The projections by researchers show that continued dichloromethane increases at the average trend observed from 2004-2014 would delay ozone recovery over Antarctica by 30 years.
• This colorless, volatile liquid with a moderately sweet aroma is widely used as a solvent. Although it is not miscible with water, it is miscible with many organic solvents.
• One of the most well-known applications of dichloromethane is in the drinking bird heat engine.

Source:TH &WIKI