Green Chemistry

This map is intended to illustrate some of the aspects and implications of green chemistry. Green chemistry is based on a number of principles that generally work to guide chemistry in the direction of efficiency, zero waste, environmental sustainability, and safety. The influence that chemistry has on the environment and society is vast. We can see chemistry at work in industry, in the formation of our technologies, and throughout our homes and gardens. The implication of this is that how we use chemistry is crucial for the long term health of our environment and ourselves.
The roots of green chemistry go back thousands of years to alchemy. In this tradition, substances are explored for their effects and properties. Then transformational processes, usually involving high heat, are used to modify these properties and to produce different effects. The twentieth century brought an entirely new level of chemistry to the world, that has revolutionized industry, culture, and our lives. Part of the consequence of this is 80,000 chemical compounds on the market today and around 600 added per year. These chemicals serve many purposes, but have generally been created without enough investigation and concern regarding how they effect environmental/human health. Because of the nature of chemistry and the law of conservation of atoms these chemicals endure and spread causing many dangerous and unintentional consequences. Green chemistry addresses these issues by working to make chemistry safe and aligned with the laws of ecology, which is based in the understanding that we live within an interconnected system. The map I created shows the connection between some of these interconnected elements and connects chemistry to social and health issues we face today. Simply by focusing our attention on the ingredients and processes involved in chemistry we can eradicate some of the ugliest aspects of our world, such as contamination, toxic disease, and environmental degradation. In fact, green chemistry can go even further in actually remedying some of the environmental problems that we face. Green chemistry begins with the understanding that our health and the health of the environment are one in the same.