Beyond Benign

Promoting Science Literacy

Welcome to the summer issue of "benign bylines," the Green Chemistry Newsletter from Beyond Benign. This newsletter was created as an outlet for us to speak about what is happening in the Green Chemistry community and to promote the wonderful things that are happening regionally and globally.

Educators, scientists, students, legislators and business leaders are all engaged in bringing Green Chemistry to their fields and each has a great deal to contribute to the community as a whole. We're looking forward to bringing you personal stories, interviews, short informational articles and discussions about Green Chemistry topics from a wide range of perspectives.

In this issue, we're pleased to bring you an interview with Margaret Kerr, the engaging and inspiring educator who recently was awarded the Alden Excellence in Teaching Award. We've also put together a short article that touches on many of the main points in the debate on bisphenol A use in plastics. The article "Blue + Yellow = Green" tells how Suffolk University won the Boston Green Business Award this year - and how Suffolk brought Green Chemistry and other Green Initiatives to many of it's programs and facilities. The summer issue also includes "Ask Amy," where reader's questions about Green Chemistry in the Home are answered. This month's Government focus is California's press release regarding Green Chemistry initiatives, released the day before our print edition went to press!

The white menu links to the left of each page serves as your Table of Contents for the newsletter. At the end of each article are links back to the Table of Contents, this homepage and to sign up for the e-newsletter. Below the Contents in the sidebar, you'll often find related material and relevant links in the "Side Notes" area.

Although we hope you'll enjoy reading the newsletter online, we know that sometimes it is more difficult to read longer items online rather than in hand. For that reason, two additional versions of the newsletter are made available at about the same time as the e-newsletter. Our subscribers receive links to a printer-formatted version as well as a fully-linked Adobe ebook/reader version.

We hope you'll enjoy - and share your comments and feedback with us at: We also invite anyone interested in sharing their story about Green Chemistry with us!