Introduction
There are many ways to help our environment. Some people do their part by cleaning up a park or doing something as simple as recycling their garbage. But some people help their environment by cutting off garbage at the source. That is where green chemistry comes in, helping the environment by making the problems nonexistent in the first place.
What is green chemistry?
Green chemistry reduces or altogether removes our toxic fumes by eliminating the use of environmentally disrupting chemicals. The difference between green chemistry and just going outside and cleaning up a stream is that cleaning up a stream deals with the result, and green chemistry deals with the root problem. There used to be a chemical used to take a poisonous gas called mercury out of the atmosphere. This chemical destroyed the environment. Using green chemistry, people figured out a new, safe alternative to remove mercury.
The twelve principles of green chemistry
The twelve principles that make up the process are pollution prevention, atomic economy, less hazardous chemical synthesis, design safer chemicals, safer solvents and auxiliaries, design for energy efficiency, use renewable feed stocks, reduce derivatives, catalyst, design for degradation, real-time analysis for pollution prevention, and inherently safer chemistry for accident prevention. Each one of these steps helps create alternatives to toxic, poisonous, or just plain dangerous chemicals and solvents.
Conclusion
Even if you don’t grow up and become a scientist, you can still use the basic idea in everyday life. You can buy products that are more environmentally friendly and find solutions to problems that aren’t going to ruin the atmosphere. There are many ways to help the world, so why not do your part?
Related stories:
https://pubs.rsc.org/en/journals/journalissues/gc#!recentarticles&adv
https://www.epa.gov/greenchemistry/basics-green-chemistry
https://www.acs.org/greenchemistry/principles/12-principles-of-green-chemistry.html
https://www.epa.gov/greenchemistry
https://www.rsc.org/journals-books-databases/about-journals/green-chemistry/
