"Scientists turn from brown to green chemistry"

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By JOAN LOWY
Scripps Howard News Service
02-JUN-05

A quiet revolution to discover more environmentally friendly products and processes is under way in one of society's most polluting industries.

Called "green chemistry," the idea is to make chemicals using less toxic or environmentally benign feed stocks and to develop chemical manufacturing processes that take fewer steps and therefore use less energy, water and potentially harmful substances. While the idea has been around a long time, it has only begun to gather steam in recent years.

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The pharmaceutical industry, for example, generates up to 220 pounds of waste for every two pounds of drug produced. But drug giant Pfizer has found that where it has applied green chemistry principles, the amount of waste produced dropped to as low as 11 pounds per two pounds of drug.

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However, some environmentalists say green chemistry amounts to the chemical industry attempting to put a happy, green face on its pollution. Instead of adopting green practices for their main products, chemical companies tend to look at green chemistry as an offshoot to their main business, said Rick Hind, head of the toxics program at Greenpeace USA. <more>

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