Each year, about one hundred billion tons of resources are extracted from the bowels of the Earth, including fuel, ninety billion of which are subsequently turned into waste. Therefore, the issue of resource conservation in our days has become very relevant. If at the beginning of the last century only twenty chemical elements of the periodic table were used, in our time - more than ninety. Over the past four decades, resource consumption has increased twenty-five times, and the amount of production waste - a hundred times.
The rational use of natural resources is the most important problem of modern society. The development of progress in science and technology is accompanied by a negative impact on nature. Natural conditions - this is something that a person can not influence, as an example, climate can be cited here. Natural resources are natural phenomena or objects used to satisfy the material needs of society or for production, contributing to the creation and maintenance of the conditions necessary for the existence of mankind, as well as to raising the standard of living.
The rational use of natural resources is the result of their reasonable study, which prevents the possibility of harmful consequences of human activity, increases and maintains the productivity of natural complexes and objects of nature. Natural resources can be divided into several main types: practically inexhaustible (atmospheric air, solar energy, internal heat, and so on), renewable (plant, soil), nonrenewable (habitat, natural resources, river energy, and so on).
The rational use of renewable natural resources should be based on a balanced expenditure, as well as renewal, providing for their reproduction. Their stocks are usually restored faster than used. The rational use of natural resources of a non - renewable type should be based on economical and integrated extraction and expenditure, as well as on the disposal of all kinds of waste. Natural resources can also be divided into potential and real. Potential resources are involved in economic turnover, while real ones are actively used. Unfortunately, today there is a problem of depletion of the resources of nature. Their level is already reduced to the point where it becomes insufficient for a person. Due to the depletion of natural resources, their further development becomes more economical and environmentally inappropriate. With uncontrolled use, some types of resources may disappear, and the process of self-renewal will stop. The recovery period of some of them is several hundred or even thousands of years.
Any human intervention entails the destruction of the unity between nature itself and man. The further existence of life on Earth will directly depend on the growth of production, which in turn depends on the depletion of natural resources. Therefore, natural resources and their rational use should be under the strict control of humanity as a whole. It is necessary to rationally use natural resources, to prevent possible harmful consequences of human activity, to maintain and increase the productivity of both individual objects of nature, and natural complexes as a whole.
The proper use of natural resources is the choice of a more suitable option to achieve an economic, social, environmental effect in the use of natural resources. Of particular relevance is their integrated use, which implies the use of low-waste and non-waste technologies, the use of secondary resources again. This saves raw materials and prevents environmental pollution by products.