In a perfect world, requiring reclamation would help. In the real world it just pushes this off to gray market recycler. They will come by and pick up your broken fridge for free for the recycle value but most will just vent the refrigerant no mater what. They just claim it was zero pressure when they found it. Hooking up a reclamation machine and paying for the refrigerant disposal would take all the profit out of this service.
So the fine mostly just stops the fridge from being worked on by qualified professionals. Perfectly fixable items are going in the trash because nobody wants to buy dedicated equipment for every refrigerant used. R134A is common enough to make the equipment worthwhile to own but not so much for propane and other less common refrigerants.
So the fine mostly just stops the fridge from being worked on by qualified professionals. Perfectly fixable items are going in the trash because nobody wants to buy dedicated equipment for every refrigerant used. R134A is common enough to make the equipment worthwhile to own but not so much for propane and other less common refrigerants.