It has long been believed that the largest entity brought upon the Earth by humankind is the Pyramid of the Sun, constructed in Mexico around the start of the Christian era. The mammoth structure commands nearly thirty million cubic feet of space. In contrast, however, is the Durham Road Landfill, outside San Francisco, which occupies over seventy million cubic feet of the biosphere. It is a sad monument, indeed, to the excesses of modern society [Gore 151]. One might assume such a monstrous mound of garbage is the largest thing ever produced ....