Safety and Environmental Considerations - Fundamentals of Industrial Chemistry: Pharmaceuticals, Polymers, and Business - page 245

Restriction of Chemical substances. The law was enacted in 2007. Manu-
facturers and importers are required to gather information on the properties
of their chemical substances and to register the information in a central
database run by the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA). There is a
general requirement for manufacturers and importers of substances of one
metric ton per year or greater to submit a registration to ECHA. Technical
information such as properties and guidance on safe use is required in the
registration. For quantities of ten metric tons or more, a chemical safety
report must be included. By using REACH, the European Chemicals Agency
builds up a public database for both professionals and the public to use to
find hazard information. There is also an emphasis on substituting for the
more dangerous chemicals when suitable alternatives have been identified.
Since inception in 2007, companies have registered more than 30,000 files
describing the uses and properties of more than 7,500 chemical substances
manufactured or placed on the market.
14.3 GREEN CHEMISTRY
Green chemistry has been defined as “the utilization of a set of principles that
reduces or eliminates the use or generation of hazardous substances in the
design, manufacture and application of chemical products” [11]. Twelve prin-
ciples of green chemistry have been enumerated [12]: (1) It is better to prevent
waste than to treat or clean up waste after it has been created; (2) Synthetic
methods should be designed to maximize the incorporation of all materials
used in the process into the final product; (3) Wherever practicable, synthetic
methods should be designed to use and generate substances that possess little
or no toxicity to human health and the environment; (4) Chemical products
should be designed to effect their desired function while minimizing their tox-
icity; (5) The use of auxiliary substances (e.g., solvents, separation agents,
etc.) should be made unnecessary wherever possible and innocuous when
used; (6) Energy requirements of chemical processes should be recognized
for their environmental and economic impacts and should be minimized. If
possible, synthetic methods should be conducted at ambient temperature and
pressure; (7) A raw material or feedstock should be renewable rather than
depleting whenever technically and economically practicable; (8) Unneces-
sary derivatization (use of blocking groups, protection/ deprotection, tempo-
rary modification of physical/chemical processes) should be minimized or
avoided if possible, because such steps require additional reagents and can
generate waste; (9) Catalytic reagents (as selective as possible) are superior to
stoichiometric reagents; (10) Chemical products should be designed so that at
the end of their function they break down into innocuous degradation products