The dawn of materials design and processing for a sustainable world

The materials community need to increasingly act and develop capability in key areas such as sustainable processing and manufacturing, sustainability evaluation, and sustainability education. The Science and Technology for Sustainability Roundtable (STSR) is aimed to mobilize, encourage, and use scientific knowledge and technology to help achieve sustainability goals and to support the implementation of sustainability practices. The National Research Council (NRC) has described vital infrastructure systems that include the power grid, transportation networks, water supplies, the telecommunications network, and waste collection, handling/treatment, and disposal/recycling. The key to sustainable solutions of providing clean water supplies is to develop simple systems and processing methods that can be performed by residents with locally available materials.