In his 40 years as the owner of E-Z Auto in Beach Haven, Kevin Douthitt, now retired, had worked with the changing regulations around Freon, but it’s the refrigerant’s other use in building air conditioners that caused him to take concern about disposal issues.

For more than five years, he has been bringing attention to cases of unsafe disposal of the gas, whose release has been implicated in depleting the protective ozone layer of the atmosphere.

Not only after Superstorm Sandy, but in other cases more recently, he became concerned at seeing Freon escaping…