Of course it's safe, right?

A conversation I had with my Dad many years ago really stuck with me. I was a teenager in disbelief when he said that just because the product is sold in a store doesn’t mean it is safe. Of course it’s safe, right? How could a company sell me something that wasn’t safe?

This conversation happened years before I ended up studying chemistry, way before I discovered green chemistry, and certainly before I learned about how chemicals are (or sometimes aren’t) tested and regulated. Since then I’ve met so many amazing people trying to change the paradigm of chemicals and chemistry to one of inherent safety and sustainability. Since this blog will be about those people and the paradigm shift, I wanted to start out with what green/sustainable chemistry means to me.

We would all like to think that companies aren’t knowingly putting a harmful product on the market that is of risk to people or the planet. By that, I’m not saying any companies are knowingly causing harm. But there are numerous examples of chemicals ending up and accumulating where they weren’t intended, like in the food chain, in the environment, and in our bodies, and in some cases having unintended consequences. (Think the classic example of the unexpected ozone layer depletion by seemingly harmless chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)).

To me, green/sustainable chemistry is essentially all about making chemicals that are safer and sustainable. It’s about minimizing the environmental and human impacts through the whole life cycle of the chemical or product – from the raw materials/building blocks/ingredients, to the processing and testing, to the use of the chemical or product, to the disposal and end of life. And it means preventing pollution and other environmental/health problems in the first place. It includes, where possible, making and using chemicals that are less hazardous, using less energy and water, generating less waste, using renewable resources, and making materials that are biodegradable/compostable/recyclable (and then disposing of them properly). It means innovating and continually improving to be more sustainable.

I’ll give just one example here that you may have noticed – “BPA-free”. There has been a big push in recent years to remove bisphenol A (BPA) from consumer products like beverage containers, especially baby bottles, because of concerns of potentially hazardous endocrine disruption or hormone-like activity, that infants are particularly susceptible to. BPA is a common building block in polycarbonate plastic and low levels remain that could leach out, so plastics are being made with other building blocks or are replaced with glass or other materials. In the case of BPA replacements, it’s critical that there aren’t unintended consequences by using other chemicals that are less studied and potentially harmful – we don’t want to replace one problem with another and finding a solution is often complex and with trade-offs.

Chemicals and products should be safe for human health and the environment. And they should be sustainable, so the planet is protected and future generations can meet their needs of health and wellbeing. Many scientists working in industry, government, academia, and non-profit organizations are striving to make this the reality.

Stay tuned to hear from some of these fabulous scientists!