Chemistry makes our sweaters softer, our world more colorful and pleasant, and it can even save lives. The downside: we have now released so many toxic chemicals that we have caused existential damage to our ecosystem. And these substances are becoming more and more common. Where are the limits of our earth’s capacity and how can we get the poison under control? Medicine, fertilizers, plasticizers, and plastics are just a few examples of how chemistry makes our lives better. It saves us from diseases that used to kill people, and ensures that most people do not starve. But that comes at a price. For decades, we have been poisoning the planet and ourselves with the “side effects.” So much so that the earth can no longer recover on its own. Can we repair the damage? Can we detoxify our earth? Even identifying the poisons is not easy. Many substances only become really toxic when they interact with others, and in some cases we do not even know which substances have been released. In addition, the chemical industry is faster at producing new substances than scientists are at researching how harmful these substances are for the environment. Another problem: poisons do not respect national borders. It is a global challenge that can only be overcome through international agreements. But if countries agree on upper limits and bans on certain toxic substances, the industry will have produced vast quantities of new chemical substitutes by the time the agreements come into force. So we will not solve the problem through controls and laws alone. How then? Some ideas come directly from the laboratories where the poisons are invented. Other scientists, however, propose a completely new type of research.