This Post is 100% Chemical-Free

“Contains no nasty chemicals”

“Wholly natural”

”No artificial preservatives!”

We’re used to seeing messages such as these nearly everywhere nowadays: on food, on hygiene products, and in the media. We accept them as a standard part of product marketing, but should we? As a chemist I can’t help but wince every time I see these sorts of messages– after all, everything in the universe consists of ‘chemicals’ of one kind or another.

Of course, the difference lies in the associations of the word ‘chemical’. To me it means medicines, plastics, solar panels, and other technological advances of the modern age. To a large proportion of the public, however, ‘chemical’ means cancer, Thalidomide, Bhopal, and rashes. No wonder ‘chemicals’ have an image problem.

Why is this the case? It certainly hasn’t always been this way. In the late 19^th century, chemists were seen as the allies of doctors and nurses, using hard-earned knowledge to make anaesthetics, antibiotics, and analgesics – in the UK, medicine dispensaries are still called ‘the chemists’’. Acids, bases, and all sorts of solvents were widely available for cleaning and washing (no Persil back then), and chemistry sets, sometimes with eye-wateringly toxic contents, were popular right into the 1970s.

It was at the start of the 20^th century that things began to go awry. The idea that chemicals could be created purely to cause harm was brought into the public mind for the first time by the wide-scale employment of chemical weapons in World War I. Accidents in the poorly-regulated chemical industry made headline news, and names like Minamata, Seveso, and Bhopal still haunt the imagination.

The rise of environmentalism stoked the idea of artificial chemicals as enemies of the ‘natural’ world, assisted by news of the ozone hole and the dangers of leaded petrol. The chemical industry gave repeated assurances that their products were safe, only for studies to prove otherwise. This led to a distrust of the industry as a force for good, and the media were quick to feed on the fears of the public.

So is this ‘chemophobia’ (as this phenomenon is now frequently termed) actually a problem? Does it matter that chemistry has such a bad name? The only answer can be that it does. Allowing such ideas to go unchallenged robs the public of the chance to understand the great achievements and wonders of chemistry, and undermines society’s trust in science and scientists. Combating chemophobia will undoubtedly be a difficult fight to win, but recognising and understanding it when we see it in our own lives is the first step on the way.