Minerals
Materials removed from the Earth are needed to provide humans with food, clothing, and housing and to continually upgrade the standard of living. Some of the materials needed are renewable resources, such as agricultural and forestry products, while others are nonrenewable, such as minerals. The USGS reported in Materials Flow and Sustainability (1998) that the number of renewable resources is decreasing; meanwhile there is an increasing demand for nonrenewable resources. Since 1900, the use of construction materials such as stone, sand, and gravel has soared. The large-scale exploitation of minerals began in the Industrial Revolution around 1760 in England and has grown rapidly ever since. Today’s economy is largely based on fossil fuels, minerals and oil. The value increases because of the large demand, but the supply is decreasing. This has resulted in more efforts to drill and search other territories. The environment is being abused and this depletion of resources is one way of showing the effects. Mining still pollutes the environment, only on a larger scale. The US government has produced the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 in order to regulate certain aspects of mining but it is truly up to the individual states to regulate it.
Read more about this topic: Resource Depletion