Sustainable development, as originally defined by the Brundtland Commission, aims to ensure that “… it meets the needs of the present generations without compromising the ability of further generations to meet their own needs.” The second part of this definition of sustainability, relating to future generations, is particularly important in the field addressed by this book. While, at least in industrialized countries, waste management practices have developed to a stage where direct impacts on the environment are significantly reduced, it is the long-term environmental problems that still need to be addressed. Making sure that waste deposits will not pose a hazard for coming generations is as much of an open problem as making sure that resources will not be depleted at a rate which cannot be sustained. Waste management or, rather, the management of material flows within an economic system is therefore an important area for testing sustainable solutions.
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