The Green Chemist

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"Chemists are usually not well educated in toxicity and ecotoxicity," reveals Collins, "and that area needs much more of our attention. When we put hazardous chemicals into distributive products, a payback will likely follow. And if the hazardous chemical can disrupt cellular development at environmentally relevant concentrations, as endocrine disrupting chemicals can do, then we may end up impairing our descendents."

So, when it comes to thwarting endocrine disruptors—which act like hormones and can adversely disrupt normal endocrine functions—Collins, as a green chemist, asks: "Can we find safer substitutes for hazardous chemicals? And, if we can't find safer substitutes for hazardous chemicals that we can't live without, then can we find green ways to reduce their adverse impacts?"

Collins, who has been a member of the Mellon College of Science faculty since 1987, pursues his green chemistry undertakings at the institute, which was established as a research, education, and development center to pursue "a holistic approach to sustainability science."

"Rule number one," he says, "is to finds ways to reduce and eliminate toxic elements in distributive technologies."

"We know a lot about the toxicity of the elements. Unless it is radioactive—in which case it is certainly hazardous—a toxic element will not degrade, period. The atoms of toxic elements are the prototypical persistent toxicants. Once you mine, refine, and release a toxic element so that it can move through the environment, it is going to poison whatever it encounters that has susceptibility.

"Rule number two is to find ways to reduce and eliminate persistent molecules in distributive technologies."

"While toxic elements are toxic at the level of the individual atoms, there is another type of persistent species that arises when atoms are tied together to produce molecules that do not break down easily in the environment. Persistent molecules are free to wander the environment. And some of them find ways to cause trouble."

Collins can rattle off some for-instances that don't take a chemistry background to consider:

What should we do when a plastic breaks down in a landfill to release an endocrine disruptor to water? Should we develop a replacement plastic? Should we develop better treatments for landfill runoff? Should we ban the plastic outright?

How should we react when a medicine's resiliency means that the active ingredient passes through people, through the sewage system, through water treatment plants, into our environmental waters to adversely affect aquatic life, and even into our tap water? Are there ways to retain the vital benefits of pharmaceuticals, but avoid the perplexing problems associated with their persistence?

(Continued …)

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