Some Chemicals Are More Green Than Other Chemicals
California, the state in which a jury recently awarded $16.5 million for a woman’s toxic exposure to H2O (water), plans to force all manufacturers to use only “non-toxic” chemicals in their products. The so-called Green Chemistry program is to be run by the California Department of Toxic Substance Control (DTSC). The department’s director is quoted by ABCNews as saying that the plan will “save the environment and increase our economy”.
As expected, a reading of the actual transcript of the “Green Ribbon Science Panel” proceedings reveals that the benefits of the effort are likely to be neither as overstated (as by the director) nor as absurd (going “chemical free”) as much of the media would have you believe. For example, “Now, I want to be clear about alternatives. You could have no alternatives…You could have an alternative that may not be safer” said DTSC staff member Evelia Rodriguez. There’s also a fair amount of effort to explain the risk/benefit concept; but, that’s about as far as things have really gone. The panel plans on doing something about 10,000 substances in the next two years but appears to be at least partially paralyzed at present as the only sensible approach, starting with the riskiest and working their way down is, not surprisingly, is rejected by those “stakeholders” whose chemical they love to hate would appear distressingly far down on such a list. How the Green Ribbon Science Panel intends to deal with the maxim “the dose makes the poison” also remains to be seen though there is some brief though ultimately fruitless discussion of what’s to be made of “de minimis” exposures.
