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Environmental Chemistry Materials Chemistry

What’s your biodegradable coffee cup made of – and how biodegradable is it?

Has your local coffee shop recently switched to biodegradable cups? Or maybe your workplace canteen has made the switch to biodegradable cutlery? Perhaps the plastic packaging of your favourite magazine is now a biodegradable wrapper? You might wonder what materials are behind these biodegradable products, and exactly how much better they are for the environment […]

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C&EN

The environmental impact of industrial reactions – in C&EN

The chemical industry accounts for about 10% of the world’s energy demand and 7% of its greenhouse gas emissions. This graphic in Chemical & Engineering News takes a look at the top 5 chemical products responsible. Click through to the C&EN site to view the full graphic.

Categories
Environmental Chemistry

The Twelve Principles of Green Chemistry: What it is, & Why it Matters

Green chemistry is a concept that crops up with increasing frequency; we’ve already discussed it here previously with reference to the Periodic Table’s ‘endangered’ elements, and the recycling rates of metal elements used in mobile phones. But what do we mean by ‘green chemistry’, and what’s required for chemistry to be considered ‘green’? That’s what […]