Mankind must conserve sustainable materials.

• Author: Young, John E.

As the supply of natural resources dwindles, the world must focus on meeting human needs with a minimum of materials and energy usage.

THE CULTURE of consumption that has spread from North America to Western Europe, Japan, and a wealthy few in developing countries has brought with it an unprecedented appetite for physical goods and the materials from which they are made. People in industrial countries account for 20% of global population, yet consume 86% of the world's aluminum, 81% of its paper, 80% of its iron and steel, and 76% of its timber.

Sophisticated technologies have let extractive industries produce these vast quantities of raw materials and have helped to keep most materials prices in decline. However, the growing scale of those industries also has exacted an ever-increasing cost. Raw materials production has brought about unparalleled ecological destruction during the last half-century.

The environmental costs of waste disposal, ranging from toxic incinerator emissions to the poisoning of groundwater by landfills, have been documented with increasing frequency. Even greater damage is caused by the initial extraction and processing of raw materials by an immense complex of mines, smelters, petroleum refineries, chemical plants, logging operations, and pulp mills. Just four primary production industries--paper, plastics, chemicals, and metals--account for 71% of the toxic emissions from all U.S. manufacturing. The search for virgin resources increasingly has collided with the few indigenous peoples who had remained relatively undisturbed by the outside world.

Though not many of the world's mostly city-dwelling consumer class comprehend the impacts and scale of the extractive economy that supports their lifestyles, the production of virgin materials alters the global landscape at rates that rival the forces of nature. Mining moves more soil and rock--an estimated 28,000,000,000 tons per year--than is carried to the seas by the world's rivers. Mining operations often result in increased erosion and siltation of nearby lakes and streams, as well as acid drainage and metal contamination by ores containing sulfur compounds. Entire mountains, valleys, and rivers have been ruined by mining. In the U.S., 59 former mineral operations are slated for remediation under the Federal Superfund hazardous-waste cleanup program, at a cost of billions of dollars.

Cutting wood for materials plays a major role in global deforestation, which has accelerated dramatically in recent decades. Since 1950, nearly one-fifth of the Earth's forested area has been cleared. Industrial logging has more than doubled since 1950, and is particularly culpable in the destruction of primary rain forests in Central Africa and Southeast Asia. Production of agricultural materials has dramatic environmental impacts as well. In the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, for instance, decades of irrigated cotton production have contaminated large areas of farmland with toxic chemicals and salt.

The chemical industry has become a major source of materials, including plastics, which increasingly have been substituted for heavier materials, and synthetic fibers, which have become crucial to the textile industry. The impacts of chemical production--from hazardous-waste dump sites such as Love Canal to industrial accidents like the release of dioxin from a Seveso, Italy, plant in 1977--generally are more familiar than those from mining, logging, and agriculture, since chemical facilities usually are located closer to urban areas.

Raw materials industries are among the planet's biggest consumers of energy. Mining and smelting alone take an estimated five to 10% of global energy use each year. Five primary materials industries--paper, steel, aluminum, plastics, and container glass--account for 31% of U.S. manufacturing energy use. This thirst for energy contributes significantly to such problems as global warming, acid rain, and the flooding of valleys and destruction of rivers for hydroelectric dams.

Despite the environmental impacts of the materials economy, the principal...