In less than ten years, the need to meet ever stricter environmental regulations has elevated hydrogen peroxide from an unknown specialty chemical to a much desired commodity. Hydrogen peroxide, which breaks down into water and oxygen, has proven to be an environmentally friendly alternative to chlorine as a bleaching and neutralizing agent in water treatment and pollution control. Although the growth of hydrogen peroxide use will slow for the pulp and paper industry, its use will continue to grow for bioremediate and other pollution control technologies, electronics manufacturing, and chemical processing. To meet increased demand, some United States producers have put their customers on strict order control and are supplementing their output with imports from offshore operations. In response to the tight supply situation, the price of hydrogen peroxide has risen 20 percent since 1990. Looking beyond hydrogen peroxide as a replacement for chlorine, producers are developing new manufacturing processes that underscore either the cost or capacity advantages of their product.