Chemicals are part our everyday life, found in almost every product and service we touch or consume. They also have an intrinsic and important link to climate change that is all too often overlooked. It’s time to take action.
On track to double by 2030, the $5 trillion dollar chemical industry produces over 2.3 billion tonnes of chemicals annually. Every year thousands of synthetic chemical compounds are created and sold for use in everything from clothes to agriculture, construction to cleaning products. Largely unregulated many including those used for sanitising and cleaning are deemed hazardous and designed to remain stable even after disposed of into our environment.
The world moves towards climate concern
Over the past decade we have seen a dramatic increase in climate change concern - both globally and in Australia. The Lowy Institute for instance reported from their 2019 national poll that six in ten Australians (61%) say ‘global warming is a serious and pressing problem’. This is a 25-point increase since 2012.
Our chemical world
Chemicals are part of our everyday life. They are found in almost every product and service we touch, use, wear and eat. From pharmaceuticals to plant protection, innovations in chemistry can improve our health, food security and much more.
To provide context on the size and scope of the industry - in the United States more than 85,000 chemicals are in commerce according the California Department of Toxic Substances Control. This includes 2,500 ‘high product volume’ chemicals that are manufactured at a rate of more than 1 million pounds annually.
UN reports urgent action is required
Vital they are, but if poorly used and managed, hazardous chemicals and waste threaten human health and the environment. This fact was highlighted in 2019 with the UN releasing its second Global Chemical Outlook Report where they highlighted –
Countries will not meet the internationally agreed goal to minimize the adverse impacts of chemicals and waste by 2020, meaning that urgent action is required to reduce further damage to human health and economies
The World Health Organization estimated the burden of disease from selected chemicals at 1.6 million lives in 2016, which is likely an underestimate. Chemical pollution also threatens a range of ecosystem services.
The Chemical Link to the Sustainable Development Goals
Chemicals and Climate Change
Making the link between chemicals and climate change is not a big bridge to cross, particularly when you consider them to ubiquitous in our world and economy.
Chemicals are the major driver of increased toxicity present in air pollution.
Chemicals are a major contaminator of watersheds and coastal water that affects natural ecosystems.
The overwhelming majority of harmful organic solvents are petroleum-based supplied by the fossil fuel industry.
Many chemicals require a lot of energy to produce – in Switzerland, for example, chemical and pharmaceutical production exceeded all other industrial sectors in energy use and was responsible for 25 percent of total industrial CO2 emissions.
Many new molecules created in chemicals are travelling around the world, many are not biodegradable and in some cases they can even detach themselves from their products. These molecules are showing up in the wind, groundwater, seas, water, soil, plants, animals, and dust.
The majority of consumer and commercial chemicals rely on a production and consumable supply model that utilizes huge volumes of single-use plastics.
“The transformation of resources into products containing chemicals also has a qualitative dimension. New compounds are created, in some cases with new or increased hazards. Chlorine chemistry, for example, turns basic feedstocks such as salt and water, together with other chemicals, into useful products such as water purification chemicals. At the same time, chlorine and many chlorine derivatives, as well as chemicals used in related production processes (e.g. asbestos or mercury), are hazardous and need to be well managed. Moreover, toxic chemicals such as mercury, lead and other heavy metals are mined, incorporated into products and disposed as wastes in the environment, where exposures of people and biota may be high.”
Green Chemistry starting to drive change
Behind the front-page headlines of energy policy (or lack there of it) there is a lot of work being done to improve our chemical world. There is no doubt we are far behind where we need to be as the UN Chemical Outlook Report highlights. As a whole the chemical industry is highly unregulated, allowing synthetic and hazardous chemicals to enter our environment at an unprecedented rate.
It is not all bad however, industry and science are coming together to find solutions to these problems. Green chemistry, which takes a revolutionary approach to the way that products are made; aiming to reduce or eliminate the use and/or generation of hazardous substances in the design phase of materials development leads this movement.
The objective of Green Chemistry is to produce a solution that is -
more environmentally benign than existing alternatives.
more economically viable than existing alternatives.
functionally equivalent to or outperform existing alternatives.
Another approach that researchers are increasingly considering is the biodegradable nature of chemicals – particularly drugs. While this may seem an obvious approach, it is counter to both regulatory and industry approach to the design of chemicals which generally require chemical stability.
What can we do
Chemicals are here to stay, but we can and should consider whether we can make improvements or use alternatives that reduce our impact on the environment. Raising the bar on the sustainability credentials of chemicals has the power to make a difference across the whole economy, making it an issue that we should all care about.
The benefit of doing so not only will benefit the environment - both research and commercial case studies prove that the movement to cleaner sustainable chemical use benefits business and the health of people as well.
eWater, which meets all Green Chemistry’s three objectives and is biodegradable in nature is a good example of how green chemistry can enable businesses to replace harsh chemicals with a sustainable alternative.