GREEN CHEMISTRY CHALLENGE Awards honor cutting pollution at source

Abstract

The first Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awards were presented last week during a ceremony at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C. Four chemical firms and a professor of chemical engineering were honored for outstanding accomplishments in using fundamental chemical principles to prevent pollution through source reduction. The first presidential honor to specifically recognize work in the chemical sciences, the awards culminated more than a year of effort by the chemical industry, the American Chemical Society, the Council for Chemical Research, the Environmental Protection Agency, and a number of other trade associations and federal and state agencies. ACS played a key role in convening the panel of judges for the awards. Presidential science adviser John H. Gibbons praised the partnership among industry, academic, and government scientists to further the goal of pollution prevention. And the keynote speaker at the ceremony, ACS President Ronald Breslow, told C&EN, It is gratifyin...