Chemical Transformational Products (CTPs) are the compounds that are formed when a chemical breaks down. Sometimes, these new compounds are inert, like the formation of water molecules. Other times, the new chemicals can be more harmful and can cause unexpected damage to people and the environment.

A great example of a CTP that we all know is Chlorofluorocarbons, better known as Freon. To jog some memories, Freon was used as a coolant in refrigerators through most of the 20th century, it was considered safe and was broadly implemented across the world. It was only when we started to notice large holes in the ozone layer that we realized that this chemical broke down in the stratosphere when exposed to UV radiation creating chlorine atoms as a CTP. It turns out that chlorine breaks down ozone which is vital to protecting the earth from harmful solar radiation. In one of humanities’ greatest moments, governments across the world coordinated to ban Chlorofluorocarbons and the ozone recovered.

Today, as new chemicals are rapidly synthesized and marketed and plants are imbued with genetic resistances so we can douse them with more toxins, we are largely unaware of the effect the CTPs of these chemicals have on our environment and on human health. In agriculture the most prominent example is glyphosate, which is claimed to be safe for both humans and the environment because it targets a plant specific pathway and degrades rapidly. We are starting to discover after decades of glyphosate usage that it has a significant impact on the soil microbiome, water ecosystems, and is a carcinogen affecting our communities. Even with the understanding that glyphosate breaks down on average over about 1.5 months in the soil (although it can take over a year), the transformational product aminomethylphosphonic acid (AMPA) is also toxic and lasts in the environment much longer than its parent compound. Even if we know that these molecules will eventually form these CTPs it is difficult to foresee the potential problems that these downstream compounds will have in nature.

This danger is further complicated when we consider yet another risk that is often encountered in the medical field. Most people have been told to not drink when taking antibiotics, or to avoid mixing certain drugs because they will interact with each other. This is also true in terrestrial and aquatic systems. The pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, and nematicides that get applied to agricultural land all break down into CTPs. Those new chemicals may bioaccumulate in the ecosystem, or they may even interact with each other or with other compounds in the environment creating new toxins. While some of the CTPs are inert and may have no impact, many of them do, entering our waterways, altering microbial and insect communities, and working their way into our food chain.

You would hope that releasing novel chemicals for use would entail an exhaustive evaluation of side effects and potential harms. There are standards for testing new chemicals, but they tend to focus on human harm and direct environmental damage. Evaluating the effects of CTPs in the environment and long-term exposure of these chemicals is much more difficult to predict and measure. We often find too late that we have been poisoning our collective watering hole and then move to the next new chemical hoping for a better outcome.

There are ways we can improve regulations to reduce the risk of new chemicals, including more precise detection tools and stricter laws, but it will always remain a complicated task predicting the outcome of novel chemicals in complex environments. The best path forward is to reduce our reliance on chemicals, build resilience in our agricultural systems and look towards safer chemicals as last resorts instead of preventative applications.