For example, when we start to run out of copper for making wires cheaply, we substitute glass fibers. By substitution, it seems, we can keep the wolf from the door for some time. It is waste disposal that is doing us in. Everything has to go somewhere, and we have run out of places to hide our poisonous wastes. It used to be that we could send them to rural Alabama or to El Salvador, or to Africa, but instant worldwide communication has closed off those options.
People everywhere know what's going on and are refusing to accept boatloads of our wastes.
Furthermore, ocean currents and the wind have brought the wastes themselves back from Africa and El Salvador. We are finding them now in our air and water, and in our morning coffee. Toxics are literally everywhere. Furthermore, every time we examine them, we find new ways in which they are harming us. That process is already well along.