Exton says that this approach sits well with UO students, who she describes as generally quite environmentally concerned. The student experiment that spurred Exton's thinking five years ago teaches a central technique of chemical analysis. In the past, students analyzed a liquid containing heavy metals that can be damaging to the environment and toxic to humans. And that's just what she and UO instructor Chris Grant did. Other universities have addressed the problem of waste from chemistry labs in a variety of ways.
Smaller quantities result in proportionately less waste.
Microscale training is probably not going to be applicable in real-world working situations. In other words, it provides students with a less useful education as compared to what we offer with our green labs. Some institutions have taken another approach by conducting virtual labs in cyberspace. While these labs create zero hazardous materials and allow students to perform procedures that might otherwise be too dangerous, they too are not without problems. With green chemistry, our students work in a real lab and gain hands-on experience that is vital to truly understanding chemistry, which, we must remember, is an experimental science.