Introduction

This chapter will consider what is toxic, what is waste, why accidents occur, and how to reduce all of these.1

1.1 GENERAL BACKGROUND

In the glorious days of the 1950s and 1960s, chemists envisioned chemistry as the solution to a host of society’s needs. Indeed, they created many of the things we use today and take for granted. The discovery of Ziegler-Natta catalysis of stereospeci c polymerization alone resulted in major new polymers. The chemical industry grew by leaps and bounds until it employed about 1,027,000 workers in the United States in 1998.2 By 2007, this number had dropped to 872,200. Some may remember the DuPont slogan, “Better things for better living through chemistry.” In the Sputnik era, the scientist was a hero. At the same time, doctors aided by new chemistry and antibiotics felt that infectious diseases had been conquered.