Before we begin, it's worth noting that "waste" is entirely a human invention because, in nature, there is no such thing.
Over billions of years of evolution, life has found ways to exploit everything that's discarded by another. Whether it's bones or flesh, faeces or the messy piles left by cockatoos, material is always useful in some way. That might be a source of energy or other essential nutrients.
Human economies, however, are introducing things that have never existed before; or at least, not in the concentrated form that we now produce them.
This might be anything from piles of paper to plastic, novel chemicals or nuclear wastes. This leaves us with vast quantities for which there is no natural process to reuse - or at least, not on a scale to make any meaningful difference.
If the volumes were less, it wouldn't matter much but, since around 1950 we have seen the "Great Acceleration" in the global economy.
That was - and still is - driven by a combination of growing population and consumption.
Clearly this cannot be sustained because the Earth's resources are not infinite and already we are approaching a time when oil supply can't keep up with demand.
Helium is another limited resource. It's a product of gas mining that has many uses, but there is no substitute and no way that it can be manufactured.
The solution we most frequently hear about is the "circular" economy. It's an idea with considerable merit and there is no doubt that a huge proportion of waste now going into rivers, oceans and landfill could be recovered.
It seeks to change our approach from "cradle to grave" to one of "cradle to cradle". Surely it's possible to reuse and recycle.
While this has been discussed for decades and progress has been made, the question is, why is the goal still so far away?
Unfortunately, two crucial hurdles mean a fully circular economy is almost certainly impossible.
The first is simple arithmetic: by definition, the circular economy can only ever recover what is already being used. It cannot cope with anything like the Great Acceleration which continues today.
The second is that the production-use-recover cycle leaks at every stage.
The manufacturing process can never be perfect and some material is always lost.
Consumers don't always throw recyclables into the correct bin.
More difficult, however, is that many products are a complex mix of many materials, which means recovery is not economically viable. This is especially true with modern electronic goods.
Still, there are huge opportunities that begins by pricing products so that they incorporate their whole-of-life costs.
While that would certainly help, it still won't be enough until we reconsider our attachment to an infinitely growing economy.
The Fuzzy Logic Science Show is at 11am Sundays on 2xx 98.3FM.
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