Chemical Industry Sees Green

We have made tremendous strides over the past decade-and-a-half in reversing the psychology of industry and government on the matter of pollution prevention,” says Paul Anastas, “and yet we have barely scratched the surface of what the promise of green chemistry holds.” Indeed, beneath that surface may lie the future for whole swathes of the chemical industry, as the drive to “go green” grows more persuasive and pervasive.

As director of the Green Chemistry Institute of the American Chemical Society, Washington, D.C., and former assistant director for the environment in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Anastas has been one of the champions of green technology and was one of the prime movers behind the 1997 establishment of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awards. Moving on this month to head up the new Center for Green Chemistry and Green Engineering at Yale University, New Haven, Conn., he has defined green chemistry as “the design of new products and processes that reduce or eliminate the use and generation of hazardous substances … we’re really talking about the chemistry of sustainability.”