One of the consequences of a modern society is the generation of enormous amounts of waste. The scale of materials use by industrialized countries dwarfs that of a century ago. By 2000 the stock of materials drew from all ninety-two naturally occurring elements in the periodic table compared with just twenty in 1900. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) estimates that, in the United States alone, consumption of metal, glass, wood, cement, and chemicals has grown eighteen-fold since 1900 and that the nation accounts for one-third of all materials used throughout the world.

The production and processing of almost any material generates by-products (which may or may not be useful) and releases them to into the air and water. Manufacturing, mining, oil and gas drilling, chemical processing, and coal-burning power plants produce many billions of tons of waste each year. Generation of radioactive and hazardous wastes has grown as...