The Principles Of Green Chemistry – Tenth Principle: Design For Degradation

The Tenth Principle of Green Chemistry mandates designing chemical products to degrade safely into non-persistent, non-harmful components at the end of their useful life. This concept moves beyond simply reducing inherent chemical hazards to actively minimizing environmental risk by ensuring breakdown after commercial function is complete. For drug designers, this means taking responsibility for the active molecule's complete lifecycle, assessing its long-term environmental impact, and planning for its ultimate degradation. Early planning is key, as considerations for degradation—whether through biodegradation, hydrolysis, or photolysis—must be balanced with business needs and integrated during the design phase. This approach requires combining insights from mechanistic toxicology to eliminate hazardous features with an understanding of degradation mechanisms to introduce features that promote safe breakdown and avoid environmental persistence.