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be evaluated to consider the methodology as green or not. In this sense it must be understood that the
corrosive aspect concerns the use of a pH lower than 2 or greater than 12, and that the waste requirements
include that the amount of generated waste must be lower than 50 per determination. To accept the
classification of PBT or hazardous of the reagents employed, the EPA's Toxic Release Inventory (TRI)
criterion are followed. On the other hand, de la Guardia and Armenta suggested a three colour code for the
evaluation of the side effects of methods and each of these kind of pictograms makes visible the efforts for
greening the analytical practices in order to move to dangerous situations (red in colour) to medium and
green
safe alternatives.
4.5
A proposal for editors and reviewers
It is clear that Green Analytical Chemistry is a hot topic in today's analytical work and many journals organize
special issues on it. However, we think that now it is time to move from the theoretical considerations to
practical efforts to integrate the environmental point of view in our everyday work. To do it, we are convinced
that it is necessary to introduce evaluation of the side effects of the use of the analytical methods as a formal
requirement of papers to be published, in the same way that the adequacy of statistical evaluation of results
obtained in each manuscript is a basic question to be answered by both authors and reviewers.
So, it could be convenient to include in publication norms the need to provide information about the
potential toxicity of all reagents and solvents required for method application, together with an evaluation of
energy and reagent consumption per sample to be analysed and wastes generated for a working time or a fixed
number of determinations. This information could be of a great value to encourage authors themselves to
think about the potential side effects of their chemistry and be fundamental for the evaluation of method
greenness.
Additionally, in the instruction for reviewers, it could be convenient to ask about their opinion on the green
aspects of the publication proposal thus creating the appropriate conditions for a rigorous evaluation of the
methodology advantages provided by the new procedures and their environmental cost, the matter of interest
being to improve not simply the main figures of merit but, also, to evaluate the risks for both, operators and
the environment.
The aforementioned recommendations will contribute to create an increased environmental conscience
about method proposals and also will impact on the readers who will be obliged to think about the side effects
of the different alternative methods. All that will be highly positive in order to create new needs like those of
toxic reagent replacement, reagent and energy consume reduction and waste minimization, thus offering
tremendous opportunities for method development and method improvement which in part, will contribute to
reinforce the position of analytical chemistry in the scientific literature and to solve real problems in an
efficient way. An approach like that suggested will involve taking into consideration not only social and
economical considerations but also environmental ones.
So, as indicated in the scheme of Figure 4.7, these suggestions will increase the environmental conscience
of both analytical method developers and users, and contribute to provide complete information to the
analytical chemistry readers about the side effects of methods available. We think that these suggestions offer
new business and science opportunities and they are so easy to implement that there is no reason to delay the
appropriate decisions of the journal editors in this sense.
On the other hand, we are sure that any effort in the way of increasing information about the risks of the
analytical methods will be welcome by the readers. At the end, they are the potential users of the authors and
journal proposals. We are living in a world with an increased environmental conscience, thus it is important
potential method users can find relevant details in published papers on the amount of energy and reagents to
be used and their potential toxicity, and because of that, a small extra effort must be made to evaluate
