Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awards

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced last week its call for nominations for the 2017 Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awards for companies or institutions that have developed a new process or product that protects public health and the environment. The deadline is December 31, 2016.

“Green chemistry innovations couple scientific brilliance with the entrepreneurial spirit that are helping to solve environmental challenges,” said Jim Jones, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. “This year, we look forward to receiving another round of outstanding nominations to continue the tradition of making manufacturing processes and every day products safer to use.”

Green chemistry is the design of chemical products and processes that reduce the generation and use of chemicals that are hazardous to the environment and people’s health.

In June 2017, EPA plans to give five awards to outstanding green chemistry technologies in traditional categories and a sixth award to a green chemistry technology that addresses climate change.

Since the inception of the program, EPA has received more than 1,700 nominations and presented awards to developers of 109 technologies. This program has helped cut hazardous solvents and chemicals by more than 826 million pounds, saved 21 billion gallons of water, and eliminated 7.8 billion pounds of carbon dioxide releases to air.

More information is available at http://www.epa.gov/greenchemistry.