The range of facilities in human societies that act to contain matter is truly vast. We spend much of our lives inhabiting, transporting, making, filling, emptying and discarding containers. Houses, vehicles, silos, shopping carts, laundry bags, milk cartons – the list is almost endless. We are contained in the womb, we are wrapped as soon as we are born, and when we die we are once again contained – in a coffin, an urn or the earth.