We live in a world of chemicals, with nearly every man-made object composed of hundreds of synthetic substances. Yet for all their importance, chemicals are rarely mentioned (except as evil pollutants) in discussions of sustainability and the built environment.
Green chemistry is a field of research that tries to find safe alternatives to harmful or unknown chemicals. It's not well-known, but that's changing: last week, the House Committee on Science and Technology passed H.R. 2850, the Green Chemistry Research and Development Act, which would earmark around $160 million for research and development over the next three years.*
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(WorldChanging, the ongoing sustainability discussion-collective-activist-something to which I'm a painfully infrequent contributor, has written a lot about green chemistry, including this handy primer.)
Sponsored by Rep. Phil Gingrey, R-Georgia, the bill hasn't received much coverage outside of a smidgen in his local newspaper. It's a long-overdue and potentially beneficial piece of legislation, though -- and if it ends up being a chemical industry giveaway, well, there's worse things the industry could do than to develop clean, safe products.
Gingrey’s green chemistry bill passes science committee [Rome News-Tribune]
