Sulphur hexafluoride (SF6)'s specific dielectric properties have ensured that this gas is the most common choice of dielectric media to be employed in gas-filled plasma closing switches (PCS). In recent years, however, environmental concerns over SF6 usage adding to the greenhouse effect and economical reasons such as the continual increase in cost of SF6 gas has lead the pulsed power research community to minimise the use of SF6 in pulsed power systems with a view to removing it completely. In order to be able to remove SF6 from these systems a suitable alternative must be found. Research has been carried out into minimizing SF6 consumption by making use of mixtures of SF6 with other gases as well as investigations into replacing SF6 with other gases such as nitrogen (N2)1, 2 It is expected that any plasma closing switch filled with any alternative gas or gases will have similar performance parameters to the conventional SF6-filled switches. The main parameters which define the switch performance include DC and triggered breakdown voltage, jitter, switch inductance and energy losses. The focus of the present paper is to study the characteristic parameters of typical plasma switch topologies used in industrial pulsed power systems such as Marx generators including DC charged and triggered PCS's filled with environmentally friendly gases (gas mixtures). Experiments have been carried out using nitrogen, oxygen and their mixtures at different pressures ranging from atmospheric pressure to 4bar absolute pressure in a sphere-sphere topology. The paper presents breakdown characteristics of this switch including its self-breakdown voltage in the DC charged regime for various inter-electrode distances. Based on the obtained experimental results, parameters which provide optimal operation characteristics of the switch (minimum spread in the self-breakdown voltage) have been identified.