We co-organized the first MRS technical symposium dealing with the environment at the 1991 Spring Meeting in Anaheim, California. Entitled “Environmentally Conscious Materials Processing,” the symposium dealt with waste minimization, pollution prevention, alternative materials and processes, recovery and recycling, and chemical sensors for process stream monitoring. This symposium captured much interest among the press and the materials community. Because of the growing interest in the environment, the MRS Bulletin asked us to guest edit this special issue that deals with the interrelated areas of materials science and the environment.

In recent years, environmental concern has heightened in the United States and around the world. Public concern was greatly raised by increased environmental awareness incidents such as the accident in Bhopal, India, and the oil spill in Alaska by the Exxon Valdez. As a result, U.S. companies are more concerned with public acceptance of their operations. In addition, manufacturers have been subject to increasingly stringent environmental legislation. Federal, state, and local legislation currently regulate air emissions, water discharges, occupational exposure, and treatment and disposal of various hazardous chemicals. In addition, the Montreal Protocol, an international agreement signed by the United States, regulates the production and use of halogenated organic compounds now known to deplete the Earth's ozone layer. Associated with these stringent environmental regulations are increasing waste-associated costs. Waste disposal costs are increasing at an annual rate of about 10%.

More than 12 billion tons of industrial waste are generated annually in the United States. This is equivalent to more than 40 tons of waste for every man, woman and child in the country. The sheer magnitude of these numbers is cause for concern and drives us to identify the characteristics of the wastes, the industrial operations that are generating the waste, the manner in which the wastes are being managed and the potential for reducing wastes. This article will provide a brief overview of the information available on waste generation and management. A more comprehensive examination of this topic is provided in a recent issue of the journal Hazardous Waste and Hazardous Materials devoted entirely to inventories of waste generation and management. This article will begin by examining the sources of industrial waste. From an analysis of the sources of industrial waste, we will move to an examination of management methods. Finally, we will note changes in rates of waste generation over the past decade and close by highlighting critical gaps in existing data.

Pollution prevention and the preservation of environmental quality are issues that can no longer be ignored. For years, environmental organizations have struggled, somewhat unsuccessfully, with U.S. industry and congressional legislators, focusing on local, national, and worldwide issues relating to environmental quality. Meanwhile, global pollutants such as acid rain (from sulfur oxide emissions), carbon dioxide, volatile organics (such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and benzene), metals (such as chromium, cadmium, mercury, and lead), dioxins, and pesticides continue to be introduced into the environment. Many consider global environmental effects potentially serious due to “partitioning,” a phenomenon where pollutants migrate to the media where they are most stable. The result is contamination in the air, water, and soil, creating a high potential for exposure to pollutants. Consider, for example, the depletion of the earth's stratospheric ozone layer, promoted by the annual emission of various CFCs equivalent to the emission of over 100 million pounds of equivalent CFC-11 worldwide (CFC-11 has an ozone depleting potential of 1.0 with other CFCs having ozone depleting potentials between zero and one). Consider also the heavily debated global warming/greenhouse effect, caused to a large degree by CO2 emissions from spent fossil fuels, one-fourth of which are consumed in the U.S. Many examples can be cited regarding the presence of toxic substances in remote lakes and streams throughout the world. Now, as the ill effects of our past and present actions are becoming visible and finally better understood, the pressure on U.S. manufacturers is increasing to take responsibility for products and processes contributing to the world's environmental degradation. This pressure will continue to rise until real solutions to these problems are developed and implemented.

CFCs proved to be one of the more useful classes of compounds ever developed because of their many desirable properties. They promote worker and consumer safety because they are nonflammable, noncorrosive, and very low in toxicity. They are used in a wide variety of applications, such as refrigerants, foam blowing agents, and cleaning solvents, because of their desirable physical properties that enhance energy efficiency and product reliability.

However, some of the properties that make CFCs desirable from a worker and consumer safety and applications standpoint have led to global environmental concerns. Because of their chemical stability, CFCs have long environmental residence times, and emissions lead to accumulation in the lower atmosphere. CFCs slowly mix into the upper atmosphere where they dissociate, releasing chlorine atoms that can catalyze destruction of ozone. Recent scientific findings have clearly linked chlorine from CFCs and other man-made compounds and bromine from man-made and natural sources to the seasonal ozone losses over Antarctica, the Antarctic ozone hole, and have indicated that these compounds are probably causing ozone losses over populated areas of both the northern and southern hemispheres as well. Since ozone provides a screen against solar ultraviolet radiation (UV-B) and excess UV-B has a potential to contribute to health and environmental concerns, significant reductions in ozone should be avoided. This information provides a sound basis for the Montreal Protocol, an international agreement amended in 1990 requiring a total phaseout of CFC production and consumption by 2000.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has determined that deep geologic disposal is appropriate for three types of radioactive waste generated in the United States: spent fuel, high-level waste, and transuranic waste. Spent fuel is nuclear fuel that has been discharged from a reactor after irradiation. High-level waste (HLW) is the highly radioactive material that remains after the reprocessing of spent fuel to recover uranium or plutonium. Transuranic (TRU) waste is any waste material contaminated with more than 100 nCi/g of elements having atomic numbers greater than 92 and half-lives longer than 20 years. Spent fuel and HLW can result from either commercial or governmental activities, although no commercially generated spent fuel has been reprocessed since 1972. TRU waste results primarily from the design and manufacture of nuclear weapons, not from nuclear power plants.

The physical characteristics of TRU waste differ substantially from those of spent fuel and HLW. This imposes different requirements on materials associated with containment and isolation, so TRU waste will be discussed separately from spent fuel and HLW Because all three are judged to be particularly dangerous to human beings and the environment, the EPA standard requires a demonstration of adequate 10,000-year performance of geologic repositories for these radioactive wastes. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is responsible for implementing the standard by designing, siting, and building the repositories.

This article briefly describes TRU waste, HLW, and spent fuel and the two repositories currently planned by DOE. It con cludes by offering some observations on materials compatibility among waste, container materials, and host rock.

For most materials scientists, as for most people, John Donne's lines “and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee.” are simply inspired verse. Increasing recognition of the interplay between human economic activity and global environmental perturbations, however, are beginning to add a cold air of prescience to John's words: “Ask not for whom the CFCs are emitted. They are emitted for thee.”

The need for greater understanding, and new, more systematic approaches to these intertwined economic/environmental issues is becoming more apparent. What is perhaps not so clear is the critical role that materials scientists and engineers must play in this effort. An analysis of the symbiotic relationships among economic development, human population growth, and the uses and flows of materials throughout the economy clearly demonstrates this role.

The intuitive feeling held by many technologists—that they are part of the solution, not part of the problem—certainly appears to be correct. But it will require growth on our part, and a more systems-oriented and comprehensive view of our role, if this promise is to be fulfilled.

The Spanish National Microelectronics Center (Centra Nacional de Microelectrónica or CNM), a nonprofit R&D institute, was established in 1985 through the joint efforts of the General Directorate of Science (Ministry of Education) and the General Directorate of Electronics and Computer Science (Ministry of Industry and Energy).

As a scientific research center, the CNM belongs to the Spanish Science Research Council (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientifícas, CSIC), but differs from other CSIC centers in two ways. CNM is a direct spinoff of a nationwide scientific and technological research program (Programa Nacional de Microelectrónica), and it has its own board of trustees with representatives from different ministries (Education, Industry and Energy, Defense, and Communications); from the local governments of Catalonia, Andalusia, and Madrid; and from microelectronics-related industries.

CNM's activities are channeled toward promoting microelectronics in Spain through scientific and technological research on the design and fabrication of integrated circuits, electronic devices, and related materials, while providing technological support for industry and university research groups. The global objectives are as follows:

∎ Establishment of stable quasi-industrial technologies in technological niches that permit good interaction between CNM and industry. Among those niches, fixed by Spain's national industrial policy, are application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), power devices, semiconductor sensors, and molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) technologies and associated devices.

∎ Startup of precise technological processes or new IC design techniques through cooperative research projects with industry and/or university groups that involve carrying out research and technology development tasks, renewing established technologies, and the continuing training of researchers.