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Most consumer product manufacturers are not required to assess the safety of chemicals in their products, so this vast responsibility is left to government agencies.

"With the current costs of a full toxicological screen approaching $5 million, the government does not have the resources to screen each new chemical as it comes to market. This means there just isn't enough information about the potential health or environmental hazards of chemicals currently in production, and this lack of data is the FIRST of three main challenges cited as an obstacle to a comprehensive policy solution," says Lee Bishop and Mitch Anstey, authors of "Green Chemistry, Chemists Clean up Their Act" in Berkeley Science Review. 

The SECOND is that most companies are not required to assume full responsibility for the health and environmental impacts of their products. This means that producers have little impetus to design safer chemicals or processes, and government agencies must wait until harmful effects are observed to take action instead of instituting preventative measures.

The THIRD obstacle is a lack of public and private investment in green chemistry research and education. Without investment in the chemicals and processes of the future, the field of green chemistry will be relegated to banning old harmful chemicals instead of creating new benign ones.

The solution being pursued at the University of California - Berkeley is multidisciplinary collaboration.

Staff and faculty from across campus have begun roundtable discussions under the auspices of the Berkeley Institute of the Environment towards the creation of a center for green chemistry at UC Berkeley--one that brings chemists, toxicologists, health scientists, public policy experts, and business experts to the same table.

Creating the center for green chemistry represents a crucial step towards solving the communication difficulties between its constituent disciplines.

The general sentiment in the department is that chemists and chemical engineers can provide the ultimate solutions to problems caused by toxic chemicals in the environment because they understand how these molecules are designed and produced in the first place and therefore are the most capable of improving them.

Not only will this work help the environment, but it will also provide chemists with fresh challenges to tackle in their research.

Where do we go from here?

The challenges posed by the principles of green chemistry cannot be addressed through legislation, business practices, or research alone. Our society and economy depend on chemicals that often pose hazards to ourselves and our environment. "Our world is becoming a chemical world, and it affects not only the environment but every person and natural resource we have," says Johnson.

If no green alternative to a given hazardous chemical or process exists, then one has to be created, which requires focused research with sustainability as an explicit goal.

Education for a green generation

Though the green chemistry movement at UC Berkeley is still in its early stages and its adherents varied in their approaches, everyone seems to agree that education is a central component of addressing the sustainability problem.

"If no green alternative to a given hazardous chemical or process exists, then one has to be created, which requires focused research with sustainability as an explicit goal. Creating a society that fosters that kind of research and its translation into economically viable products will require a population that is educated in the principles of green chemistry and other aspects of sustainability, conclude the authors of "Green Chemistry: Chemists Clean Up Their Act".

NOTE from the publisher:  Because scientists are so wary about communicating with journalists, I thought it best that I excerpt from the article written by Bishop and Anstey, and try to maintain the integrity of their message.  Please forgive me if my concern outweighs my scientific knowledge -- but I, too, believe it is important that we support better green chemistry knowledge and applications in both education and the commercial world.

The meaning of greening

The term green chemistry was first coined in 1998 by Yale professor Paul Anastas and John Warner of the Warner Babcock Institute in their book "Green Chemistry: Theory and Practice." They defined it as "the utilization of a set of principles that reduces or eliminates the use or generation of hazardous substances in the design, manufacture and application of chemical products."

The green chemistry movement is beginning to take hold at UC Berkeley. An important recent step was a 2008 report commissioned by the California EPA entitled "Green Chemistry: Cornerstone to a Sustainable California," which includes among the authors Drs. Michael Wilson and Megan Schwarzman, research scientists in the UC Berkeley School of Public Health. The wide-ranging report outlines some of the major environmental, health, and economic impacts of California's current approach to regulating chemicals.

Over 100 synthetic chemicals and pollutants have been found in umbilical cord blood, breast milk, and adult tissues, and, according to the report, many of these chemicals are "known or probable human carcinogens, reproductive or neurological toxicants, or all three."

Thousands of new chemicals are introduced to the marketplace each year and global chemical production is doubling every 25 years.

The report highlights the need for comprehensive policy solutions to avoid the potentially disastrous consequences of releasing these chemicals into the environment.

Read more at the Berkeley Science Review

SOURCE:
Green Chemistry
Chemists clean up their act (view PDF)
by Lee Bishop and Mitch Anstey

From 1961 to 1971, over 20 million gallons of the powerful defoliant Agent Orange were sprayed across the jungles of South Vietnam. The herbicidal active ingredients destroyed millions of acres of forests, but perhaps even more tragically, the contamination of Agent Orange with the carcinogen dioxin caused hundreds of thousands of deaths and continues to affect the people of southern Vietnam to this day. Dioxin is now infamous as one of the world's most potent cancer-causing chemicals.

It's All About the Supply Chain . . .

Burning chlorine-containing organic materials produces dioxin, and oftentimes the chlorine is present only as a contaminant and not as the crucial component of the material, making dioxin production difficult to control. Coal fire plants, waste incinerators, and even forest fires are implicated in dioxin production, and until recently, engine exhaust from ships and trains also contributed to the problem.

In response, the California Environmental Protection Agency began investigating how chlorinated chemicals could be contaminating these vehicles' fuel.

They found that the automotive repair industry was using two chlorine-containing compounds, methylene chloride and tetrachloroethylene, as brake and engine cleaners. These chemicals were then combined with used car oil that was recycled into a cheap source of fuel for dioxin-spewing tankers and trains.

These findings prompted well-intentioned regulations to prohibit the use of those chlorinated chemicals in degreasers in California, and the automotive repair industry adopted a mixture of the chemicals hexane and acetone as a substitute.

Tragically, auto mechanics began experiencing numbness of their hands and feet, and some were even rendered wheelchair-bound.

It was eventually determined that hexane was being metabolized into a potent neurotoxin in the mechanics' bodies, causing nerve damage. This so-called "regrettable substitution" illustrates the difficulties inherent in designing and regulating chemical tools, weighing their benefits against often unknown environmental and health impacts.

It is becoming increasingly apparent that the current chemical production and regulation system is flawed, and the field of green chemistry aims to provide the solution.

Read more at the Berkeley Science Review