Day: March 9, 2022

Webinar: Mainstreaming Green Chemistry in Metal Finishing Operations: Finding the Indicators

Mar 21, 2022, 11 am CDT
Register here.

Green Chemistry (GC) principles provide chemists the opportunity to create a greener landscape across all industrial sectors; however, the application of these principles for the creation of new molecular designs is still lagging. The availability of cleaners, safer or greener chemicals is not yet available for many industrial sectors.

The metal finishing sector, for instance, continues to use chemicals considered hazardous, toxic and even carcinogenic.  To reduce the harm and risk of exposure, it is necessary to find an alternate path to advance greener perspectives.  This is a challenge, especially in an industry where the use of chemicals of concern (i.e.; chromic acid, lead and cadmium compound) are heavily present as raw materials. Finding GC opportunities within metal finishing is not only difficult but also one that poses challenges to its advancement.  This presentation gives us a perspective that allows us to apply and find “greenness” in some of the operations in metal finishing.

By using the Prevention principle and the perspective from the Green Chemistry and Commerce Council (GC3), the presenter will explain how to identify GC indicators. Under this new alternate path, metrics can be developed and be integrated to measure the greenness in metal finishing operations. The presence or absence of green indicators in the operations in a company may serve to either grant a green certification or make recommendation that may lead to the promotion of GC. 

Webinar: Where to Start: Integrating Sustainability Into Chemistry

Mar 16, 2022, 6 pm CDT
Register here.

From ocean plastic to forest fires, our world need invention, innovation and creativity within chemistry education. Green chemistry, also known as the science of solutions, offers a framework for decreasing hazards within classrooms while promoting sustainability for both human health and the environment. Unpack two lesson plans where sustainable science integrates into traditional lesson and labs. Whether you are new to thinking about sustainability in the classroom, or have already implemented green chemistry lesson plans, we want you to join us.

Join this discussion forum, including a Q and A with 12 teachers all exploring how green chemistry can fit into their classrooms. Together, we will create a community of Green Chemistry educators.

No, you don’t need to worry about joro spiders. They may even be helpful in some ways

Read the full story from NPR.

They’re huge and scary-looking, and could soon be moving into most of the Eastern Seaboard of the U.S., according to new research.

But don’t worry too much: Joro spiders are harmless to humans — and even do some good.

“People should try to learn to live with them,” Andy Davis, a research scientist in the Odum School of Ecology and one of the authors behind the recent study, told UGA Today, a publication by the University of Georgia.

Published in the journal Physiological Entomology, the study says that the palm-sized joro spider, which has been largely confined to warmer southeastern states for nearly a decade, could soon be expected to colonize regions with colder climates.

Webinar: Paint your Coatings Green: Wetting and Dispersing Additives to Address Changing Regulations

Mar 10, 2022, 1 pm CST
Register here.

Sustainability and the notion to be “greener” are drivers for formulation changes within the industry. A formulator must balance performance, cost, and production viability, while keeping up with many environmental standards from various governances, both globally and nationally. Selecting raw materials that satisfy the required criteria can be a challenge. BYK strives to alleviate formulators’ stress by offering solutions that anticipate downstream regulatory changes while delivering reliable performance. This webinar will focus on wetting and dispersing additives that have been developed to offer corrosion resistance protection in waterborne DTMs and tin-free and biocide-free alternatives to existing products as well as a glimpse into how changing regulations guide innovation developments.

Learning Objectives:

  • Learn about recent innovations to improve corrosion resistance in waterborne protective coatings.
  • Discover the tin-free and biocide-free wetting and dispersing additive families.
  • Hear about how BYK takes action to stay ahead of regulatory changes.
  • Understand how R&D incorporates sustainability initiatives into next generation innovations.

Can’t attend live? Register to view the webinar on-demand!

Speaker: Mary Kate Nolan, Technical Support Manager – Sales and Distribution BYK USA

Redlining means 45 million Americans are breathing dirtier air, 50 years after it ended

Read the full story in the Washington Post.

Decades of federal housing discrimination did not only depress home values, lower job opportunities and spur poverty in communities deemed undesirable because of race. It’s why 45 million Americans are breathing dirtier air today, according to a landmark study released Wednesday.

The practice known as redlining was outlawed more than a half-century ago, but it continues to impact people who live in neighborhoods that government mortgage officers shunned for 30 years because people of color and immigrants lived in them.

The analysis, published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology Letters, found that, compared with White people, Black and Latino Americans live with more smog and fine particulate matter from cars, trucks, buses, coal plants and other nearby industrial sources in areas that were redlined. Those pollutants inflame human airways, reduce lung function, trigger asthma attacks and can damage the heart and cause strokes.

Carbon capture takes center stage, but is its promise an illusion?

Read the full story at Inside Climate News.

The oil industry, Biden administration and even some environmentalists see sucking carbon dioxide from smokestacks and the atmosphere as critical to solving the climate crisis. But the IPCC says relying on it presents a “major risk.”

Science Based Targets Initiative removes fossil fuel companies’ commitments and validated targets

Read the full story at ESG Today.

The Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), one of the key organizations focused on aligning corporate environmental sustainability action with the global goals of limiting climate change, announced today that it will on longer accept commitments or validate targets from fossil fuel companies, and will remove those with previous commitments, as it looks to develop peer reviewed oil and gas target setting methodologies.

In a statement announcing the move, the organization said that “the SBTi has updated its fossil fuel policy and will no longer accept commitments or validate targets from fossil fuel companies,” but noted that “companies may be reinstated following further development of the fossil fuel sector project.”

Recycling tech startup Novoloop raises $11 million to upcycle low value plastic into high performance materials

Read the full story at ESG Today.

Advanced upcycling company Novoloop announced today it has raised $11 million in a Series A financing, aimed at funding the completion of pilot scale-ups and the commercialization of Novoloop’s process technology, which turns plastics that are often not recycled into high-performance chemicals and materials.

Unintentional PFAS in products: A “jungle” of contamination

Read the full story at Environmental Health News.

From manufacturing to packaging, PFAS are getting into cosmetics, clothes, and food even when companies are not intentionally adding the chemicals.

Inside FDA’s ‘forever chemicals’ catastrophe

Read the full story at E&E News.

The DuPont product, Zonyl RP, entered the picture as the nation was transforming its food system. Americans wanted eating to be fast, easy and cheap. At supermarkets, paper and plastic containers were delivering more food options to millions of people. Fast-food restaurants wrapped burgers and fries for working families.

With billions of dollars in future sales in the balance, questions about Zonyl’s safety were trouble for DuPont. So the company cut the amount of the coating it planned to apply to food packaging in half. Only in “exceptional circumstances,” DuPont’s lawyer assured FDA, would the substance rub off packaging and make it into people’s food.

The nation’s food safety watchdog agreed, effectively waiving the longer-term health study.

For the next half-century, PFOA would find its way into the American diet through everything from buttery popcorn to burgers and pizza.