Green chemistry risk reduction

The goal of green chemistry is to reduce the hazards associated with products and processes that are essential not only to maintain the quality of life achieved by society through chemistry, but also to further advance the technical achievements of chemistry, and to do so in a sustainable manner. Reduction of risk is a beneficial result of green chemistry. Risk can be summarized in simple terms as the product of the hazard of a particular substance and the exposure to that substance ... 

The fundamental premise behind green chemistry is that the most reliable way to reduce risk is to reduce hazard (rather than reduce exposure). The effectiveness of hazard reduction as a means for reducing risk has been known for decades. Writing in the 1970s, Dr. Joseph Ling (former vice president of environmental engineering and pollution control at 3M) concluded that "conventional controls [that is, controls to reduce exposure], at some point, create more pollution than they remove and consume resources out of proportion to the benefits derived. What emerges is an environmental paradox. 

Although exposure reduction may reduce risk at a cost, it does nothing to address consequences should there be a failure in the controls. Green chemistry, based in hazard reduction, reduces or eliminates risk at the source—and hence reduces the consequences. Green chemistry can address toxicological and waste generation... 

Green chemistry is not a new type of chemistry, but a new philosophy of chemistry, one focused on the reduction of risks and inherent safety. It is about new benign by design alternatives. It is not more complex than traditional chemistry but it is a distinctive approach based on the evaluation of toxicity of materials and their by-products when designing a safer, cleaner, and cost-efficient process. 

There is no doubt that over the past 20 years, the chemistry community, and in particular, the chemical industry, has made extensive efforts to reduce the risk associated with the manufacture and use of various chemicals. There have been innovative chemistries developed to treat chemical wastes and remediate hazardous waste sites. New monitoring and analytical tools have been developed for detecting contamination in air, water and soils. New handling procedures and containment technologies have been developed to minimize exposure. While these areas are laudable efforts in the reduction of risk, they are not pollution prevention or Green... 

---