Its very unlikely that a shop will "buy" your refrigerant, even at the current cost of R12. They don't know if its contaminated or not or even if its R12 in there.
Put a glove on and push in the valve until the hissing stops. Don't worry about the enviroment your not going to hurt it. The millions of swimming pools in the world put out so much more chlorine that it dwarfs all the Freon vented or leaked. Just don't let someone see (video tape) you do it.

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67Cuda,FAST EZEFI,340cu,CR=10.25,RollerCam&Rocker (XR268HR,#20-810-9)(#1622-16)(EddyRPM#60779,#7576), (MSD6AL,#6425) A904, GearVendorsOD, 8 1/4,3.55:1, ClassicAir

Bzzt! You're thinking like an American, and an uninformed one, at that. Doing as you suggest is illegal in the USA, and it is very illegal in Sweden where the original poster lives. Not only that, but for the most part, the average Swede tends to be a great deal more cautious than the average American about the environment and the effects of his behaviour upon his fellows.
I'm guessing you are not a scientist of any kind, and especially not a chemist or a climatologist. Chlorine of the form found in bleach and swimming pools and volcanic eruptions is not the same as Chlorine that is a part of chlorofluorocarbons. Comparing the two is about as valid as comparing popsicle sticks to watermelons.

It's really good to try never to stop learning, and it's grand to form opinions about what you see around you, but along the way it's helpful not to make authoritative pronouncements based on incomplete or absent knowledge. Even though we humans really, really, really like to disbelieve things that are difficult to understand or inconvenient in one way or another...that neither changes facts nor substitutes for genuine science.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

What an incomprehensibly dumb thing to say.

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I've been calling it as i see it for my entire life and that's not about to change. Take it or leave it.

Dumb? - No
As you may know I am in the A/C business. Spent many many hours in new technology training. This training even had some chemists on hand. Now these chemists and other authorities would not stand and teach this as part of their course, but during breaks they would say this. Now its true I am not a chemist, but we all learn from people who know. I am a very skeptial person, but if one hears it enough from seemingly qualified people, it seems likely to be true.
The recovery and recycling of refrigerant is big business and the EPA has their hand in it. The EPA can't tell someone they can't swim in their pool. There would be an uproar.
Do I dump my used oil into the lakes? No. Do I vent refrigerant? No. I have the equipment to recover it. But for someone that does not have equipment and may not wish to spend the money or time to recover it, in my opinion can do what he or she wants.

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67Cuda,FAST EZEFI,340cu,CR=10.25,RollerCam&Rocker (XR268HR,#20-810-9)(#1622-16)(EddyRPM#60779,#7576), (MSD6AL,#6425) A904, GearVendorsOD, 8 1/4,3.55:1, ClassicAir

What Dan is trying to explain is that two or three different elements combined form a different substance entirely and are not merely a 'soup' of ingredients put together and not a sum-of-its-parts deal. Thats like saying carbon monoxide is simply carbon mixed with some oxygen gas. Carbon and oxygen are harmless but carbon monoxide will kill you. A chemical reaction is nessecary to bring them together as well to seperate them. Its not like putting together a meat and cheese sandwich

That's good. I've got my 609 cert, too. Here's something to think about, though: A lot of cops will tell you "Airbags definitely save lives." They make that assertion based on what they know from what they've seen in the hundreds or thousands of crashes they attend to...or, more accurately, what they think they know from what they think they've seen. In fact, most cops are quite unqualified to comment on the efficacy of airbags, because what they see is only a tiny slice of reality, and they lack the knowledge to assess even that tiny slice in terms of crash safety performance.

Likewise, A/C techs generally are not in a position to be issuing assertions on ozone depletion science, because it's not their job to do so. Opinions, guesses, conspiracy theories, talk-radio mumbojumbo and swimming-pool babble do not substitute for science.
Good! That's excellent, and as it should be.
Fortunately for us all (and the supply of recycled refrigerant, and the ozone layer), your opinion not only doesn't carry the force of law, but it's also specifically Federally against the law.

Whatever the job at hand, there are four choices to make:

Right thing, right way
Right thing, wrong way
Wrong thing, right way
Wrong thing, wrong way

Picking anything but "right thing, right way" makes problems for somebody, somewhere. Sometimes it's just for yourself, but often it's for others. Please try to have a little more thought for those of us who share the planet with you.

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Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

I generally like to make things simple. Things that smell bad usually=bad. Wear a mask in a paint booth.. it smells bad, wear a mask when sanding because... it smells bad. I've happened to have a facefull of freon and it smells very bad. A car got hit in the front and I was using my slide-hammer to move a braket up and punctured the AC condensor and the car steamed for quite a while. By the time the AC guy's got there it was pretty much gone. I'm not an environmentalist by any means... honestly I don't care anywhere near the amount I should. Removing the AC is relatively cheap though and I consider it one of those things where I'd be going out of the way to hurt the environment if I just let it go up into the atmosphere.

Not to drag things too far off topic, but Dan, are you suggesting that air bags don't save lives? I have no evidence one way or the other, but I'd be interested if you did.

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Used to own:
'82 Dodge D150
Erson 270 Cam, O/S valves, mild port work, ~9.5:1 compression

Currently fighting with an '85 VW Cabriolet

My other passion

In some situations they can, but I do know that air nbags have a nasty habit of decapitating small children (hence the recommendation that the car seat for your baby fae the rear), causing third degree powder burns from the explosion when they deploy, rupturing ear drums, causing serious abrasions and bruising, basically the standard range of things you would expect iof a bomb went off in your face.

Personally, I would rather drive a solid car made of metal with a good seatbelt than drive a car with a bomb bolted into the dash or steering wheel. I have heard that alot of autobody shops won't work on a car after it has been in an accieent if the airbag didn't deploy for fear that the charge could go off unexpectedly.

Dan,

You paint with a pretty wide brush when say " Your thinking like an American". What does that bring to the table? Is it necessary to add that to get the point across? I don't think so. We have our fair share of everything from environmental extremists to those who deny that man has anything to do with anything that's going on, and everything in between. You could have made all your points just as forcefully and not had to slam our country. I don't want to get into a long drawn out rant about this either. But, just as you call people on things when they are wrong, I think you are wrong using the wide brush approach here. Now, I had my say, hopefully we can move on and not bad-mouth each others country.

Rick Covalt

I think the point here is that a "backyard mechanic" does not have the equipment or knowledge to deal with a charged AC system.
Based on that, you need to take the car to someone who knows and then make a decision on what to do.

Another point, it does not take much to understand and effectivly deal with a charged A/C system. I did some reading and purchased some hoses and gauges 'second hand' and can effectivly deal with evacuating a system myself.

Truth be told, I try to 'capture' all the R12 I can, ($$$) but I work on some systems where there is only a small amount of freon / pressure in the system, mostly all vapor at that point. I don't have a good way to get every last bit so I do let some escape into the atmosphere. This also happens when I disconnect my gauges and lines.

FYI, with a gauge set and some hoses you can use the car's (or another car's) compressure to move freon into other cars or containers. It is simply a matter of knowing where to tap into the system.
DD

Well, sure, of course. So does Sweden. I needed to make a point about generalities, so I made use of a generalisation. That's all. No personal offence was intended. It's a supportable generalisation, too; take a look at the on-road-fleet average fuel economy in the US vs. Sweden, the energy consumption per capita with GDP factored in for the US vs. Sweden, the amount of waste discarded per capita in the US vs. Sweden, etc.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Yep, and also follow the laws of whatever jurisdiction you're in. Most 1st-world countries have stricter-than-US laws regarding A/C refrigerant handling.
Right again, it's not especially complicated. But, knowledge gaps can be dangerous; it's pretty easy to injure oneself (possibly severely/permanently) and/or do expensive damage to the car if one doesn't really understand what to do and how to do it.
These, particularly the little "Fsst!" as you connect or disconnect your gauge set, are known as de minimus (Latin for "minimal") releases, and are allowed for by law. The "almost nothing left" case is probably not considered de minimus, but one does have to draw a line of practicality in the real world at some point, and it sounds like yours is appropriately set.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

I offer here a few thoughts on the topic in the fervent hope this does not turn into a war: I'm an appointed member of the US National Academy of Sciences Transportation Research Board. That doesn't mean I'm a bigshot or a guru or anything, but it does give me easy access to a great deal of the world's primary research on traffic safety-related matters, with the large advantage of not having to try to read them through the mass media's filtration. Airbags as specified, implemented and mandated in the US, are problematic. They save very few lives at an exceedingly high cost (in dollars as well as injuries and deaths that wouldn't have occurred without bags). Other countries have done a better job not only of devising technical specifications for airbags that don't kill and injure, but of improving traffic safety in general. Dr. Leonard Evans, certainly one of the world's foremost traffic safety experts, lays out the data and results from various countries, and has written extensively on the airbag issue. Time on his website is well spent (click the "Specific topics" link to read about airbags). His book is worth the $100(!) cost, to his intended audience of those involved with traffic safety research.

The main problem with US airbags is that they are required by Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 208 (yes, even the "depowered" and "next-generation" ones!) to be designed so as to "save" an UNbelted, 50th-percentile-size-and-weight-male dummy. That is, they are required to be calibrated around the assumption of seatbelt non-use. In other countries, bags are designed and calibrated around the assumption that the vehicle occupant will be belted in. Big, big difference, and, IMO, a very, very bad US policy (increasing the risk of injury/death to those who protect themselves with seatbelts, and those who happen to be smaller and shorter, in order to offer a last-ditch "save" for those too dumb to buckle up).

The issue is very complex and very political, and it's very easy to get confused by the maze of press releases and statements issued by automakers afraid of being sued, regulatory agencies who don't like the glare of press attention, marketeers afraid of seeing a slump in sales figures, and safety advocates trying to build careers or get funding.

Auto and traffic safety regulation in the US is comparatively pathetic in terms of the huge amount of money spent on it and the lousy results we get for our dollar.

Finally: Buckle your seatbelts, folks, every time you get in the car, and spend whatever time and money is necessary to keep them in tip-top condition. In a crash, the belt does over 95% of the job of saving you from injury or death.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

As appropriately stated, there is no possible way that man can make any change in nature. We can't hurt it, we can't change it, we can't stop it. If anyone here thinks we can do any thing to effect nature, than jump in front of a train and stop it. If you can well I suppose we maybe able to do some thing. But if not, there'll be at lest one less tree huggin', greeny wacko, hippy, as we Americans put it, to worry about.