What is causing the depletion?
Overwhelming scientific evidence accumulated over more than two decades of study by the international research community has shown that human-made chemicals are responsible for the observed depletion in the ozone layer over Antarctica and likely play a major role in stratospheric ozone losses. The ozone depleting compounds contain combinations of the elements chlorine, fluorine, bromine, carbon and hydrogen. The general term for them is HALOCARBONS. Compounds that contain only carbon, chlorine and fluorine are called CHLOROFLUOROCARBONS (CFC). Compounds that carbon, bromine, fluorine (and sometimes chlorine) are called HALONS.
