The gold in a single wedding ring generates 3 tons of mining waste. Logging for wood products eliminates species habitat, contributing to what biologists agree is a mass extinction of species. Synthetic chemicals used in pesticides, solvents, and cleaning products are linked to health problems ranging from cancer to reproductive disorders in humans and animals. Metal emissions from factories have killed hundreds of thousands of hectares of Russian forests. China, with little capacity to process industrial wastes, has stockpiled 6 billion tons of it-5 tons for every Chinese man, woman, and child.
Materials contribute to climate change.
Their extraction eliminates forests that absorb carbon-logging for wood threatens 70 percent of the world's untouched forests. Their disposal generates methane, a potent greenhouse gas-landfills account for 10 percent of global methane emissions. On the Science of Materials Materials have become more complex this century, drawing from all 92 naturally occurring elements in the periodic table, compared with the 20 or so in use in 1900. More than 100,000 new chemical compounds have been developed since the 1930s. Insufficient information exists for health assessments of 95 percent of chemicals in the environment, reports the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.