The industrial revolution and population explosion of the 19. and 20. century brings about rapid exhausting of natural resources and increasing volume of produced wastes of different origin and kind. Many of them are in fact valuable secondary raw materials. The recycling of materials and energy is unsufficient, the introducing of waste-free management is not popular. The cycle of lectures includes the most important, especially high-volume produced secondary raw materials, inorganic as well as organic and their industrial utilization, the sorting of wastes, the management of municipal incinerators and the recycling of energy. The outlook for the 21. century is commented.