1.2.4 Matter in the economy

Matter is anything that takes up space and has mass. Earth has a finite amount of materials like water, soil, minerals, fossil fuels, and biomass. We measure these materials by their volume (the space they occupy) and mass (their weight).

Some forms of matter are renewable resources, they regenerate. Biomass, or all living matter, regenerates over time because of solar energy inputs. Some plants regrow in weeks or months, while others may take decades. These forms of matter are flow-limited. They are only renewable if we use them at a slower rate than they regenerate. It is also important that waste products from renewable resources safely recycle back into Earth’s systems, like composting food waste instead of putting it in a landfill.

Humans also use nonrenewable resources, like fossil fuels for energy mentioned in Section 1.2.2. These resources are stock-limited. We mine metals such as iron ore, aluminium, and copper to make machinery, electronics, and vehicles (Figure 3). Iron ore, making up over 90% of all mined metals, is transformed into steel for use in buildings, transport, and appliances.

Sand and gravel are crucial for making cement in construction projects like buildings and roads. While it may seem that we have a lot of sand on the Earth, much of it is not appropriate for construction. According to the United Nations, we dredge about 6 billion tonnes of sand yearly from oceans, rivers and lakes, such as China’s Poyang Lake, the world’s largest sand mine. Sand dredging is expected to increase further due to population growth and urbanisation, as more concrete is used for the built environment.

The Further Exploration section below includes an article and interactive graphics on how sand mining has severely impacted China’s Poyang Lake.

According to the UN, in 2019, the total global material footprint reached 95.9 billion tons, doubling since 2000. By 2020, human-made products and infrastructure outweighed all living biomass on Earth. Our material footprint continues to grow as our populations and economies expand. We are running into Earth's material limits, rapidly using nonrenewable resources like fossil fuels, sand, and minerals, and extracting renewable resources like fish and forests faster than they can regenerate.

When we use and change matter to meet our needs, we cannot avoid some waste because:

• disorder, or entropy, increases over time, leading to decay or breakdown of materials unless more energy is added to maintain order (Second Law of Thermodynamics). For example, a pair of socks eventually wears out and becomes waste unless energy and matter are used to repair or repurpose the socks. 

• waste is a byproduct of production, when there are unused or unusable materials, often due to poor product design.

There are many types of material waste from different sources, causing varied levels of damage to Earth systems:

• organic waste: includes food scraps, yard waste like leaves and grass, and other natural materials that can decompose;

• solid waste: common material items thrown away every day, such as paper, plastics and glass;

• chemical waste: dangerous synthetic chemicals and and substances found in old batteries, industry effluent, and household cleaners and other materials;

• e-waste: electronic waste from old computers, TVs, phones and other devices. These contain valuable metals, but also harmful substances;

• construction waste: waste materials from constructing buildings and infrastructure; about 30% of global waste comes from the construction industry.

Understanding different types of waste helps us reduce and manage waste to protect human and ecosystem health. Through circular design and recovery systems, we can significantly reduce, but not eliminate, waste.

Because our use of matter is closely related to the production of goods and services in the economy, the most effective action we can take is to reduce production and consumption of material goods, particularly in wealthy Global North countries where human needs are largely met. This involves buying and producing less and moving to circular economy strategies (Section 1.4.2) to cycle products and materials many times in the economy to reduce the use of new materials and reduce waste.

Governments can pass laws requiring circular strategies, like France’s Anti-waste law. They can also provide financial support to businesses to invest in new processes and materials involving circular strategies. Businesses can focus on providing goods and services that people actually need, rather than producing and promoting products that do not add to human wellbeing. They can also design products that use fewer material resources, and can be cycled again and again in the economy to produce less waste.

Disconnect between causes and impacts

The regions consuming the most resources are different from those that feel the ecological impacts. Material resources tend to flow from low-middle income countries in the Global South to wealthier countries in the Global North. Those people in the Global North that use the most material resources do not (yet) feel the ecological effects, nor are they paying the true price of the resources they use. The negative impacts are felt mainly by those in the Global South. So the delays in the feedback to consumers and businesses in the Global North are a barrier to action.

Economic and population growth

Governments and businesses aim for continuous economic growth, measured by gross domestic product (GDP), which involves increased material use and waste. In addition, the Earth’s population at over 8 billion people, continues to grow and is expected to peak around the 2080s at around 10 billion. More people will use more material resources to meet their needs. 

Concept: Regeneration

Skills: Research (information literacy)

Time: 30 minutes

Type: Individual, pairs, or group

Option 1 - How efficiently are you using material resources to meet your needs?

• Write down ten things that you do to satisfy a need or make you happy. 

• Rank them in order with the things that are most important to you at the top.

• Now put a number beside each that indicates a low (1), medium (2), or high (3) use of materials and production of waste. 

• Are there any patterns? 

• Which things use the least material resources, but also meet your needs or make you happy?

Brainstorm things you can do in your own life to reduce the amount of resources you use and the waste you create to meet your needs and be happy. You can use the list of individual actions from the text to help you. Discuss these with a partner or with your classmates in a group.

Option 2 - Global material footprint - data interpretation practice

Examine Figure 14 and Figure 15 below. Use a data interpretation strategy suggested by your teacher or your course to form some conclusions about material use per capita and material use per unit of GDP.

Ideas for longer activities, deeper engagement, and projects are listed in Subtopic 1.5 Taking action

• The story of Stuff - a 20 minute film about our use of matter in the economy and what we can do about it. Difficulty level: easy

• Dead River podcast - true crime podcast about Brazil’s worst environmental disaster, the 2015 collapse of the Fundão tailings dam, which stored the toxic byproducts of iron ore mining. Difficulty level: medium

• Interactive case study of sand dredging at Lake Poyang in China  + news article. Difficulty level: medium

• Explore the concept of ecological footprint, learning about countries’ ecological deficits or surpluses at the Global Footprint Network. You can also calculate your own ecological footprint. Difficulty level: medium

• Andy Goldsworthy - artist exploring the use of natural materials in visual art. Difficulty level: easy-medium

• World Resources Institute - a rich source of data to explore global natural resources. Difficulty level: high

• Podcast with Ed Conway: Material World: The Key Resources Underpinning Modern Economies - long (1 hr, 45 minutes) interview podcast with author Ed Conway about the role of sand, salt, iron, copper, oil, and lithium in our modern economies. Difficulty level: medium

Conservation International (n.d.). Biodiversity hotspots. https://www.conservation.org/priorities/biodiversity-hotspots.

Daly, H., Farley, J. (2011). Ecological Economics (2nd ed.). Washington, D.C.: Island Press.

Ellen MacArthur Foundation. It’s time for a circular economy. https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/.

Marsh, D. (n.d.). Palabora Mine - 4.1 million tonnes of copper. For What it’s Worth. https://dillonmarsh.com/copper07.html.

Raworth, K. (2017). Doughnut economics: seven ways to think like a 21st century economist. London: Penguin Random House.

Sharma, M. and Scarr, S. (2021, July 19). Devoured: How sand mining devastated China's largest freshwater lake. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/reuters-graphic-devoured-how-sand-mining-devastated-chinas-largest-freshwater-2021-07-19/

United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs: Sustainable Development. https://sdgs.un.org/goals.

United Nations Environment Programme – processed by Our World in Data (2023, August 26). “12.2.1 - Material footprint per capita, by type of raw material (tonnes) - EN_MAT_FTPRPC” [dataset]. United Nations Environment Programme [original data].

Link to Quizlet interactive flashcards and terminology games for Section 1.2.4 Matter in the economy

matter: anything that takes up space and has mass

mass: the weight of matter

First Law of Thermodynamics: matter cannot be created or destroyed in the universe

biomass: organic matter that is burned for energy

volume: the space that matter occupies

energy: the ability to do work or cause change

transfer: to move something from one place to another

transform: a change in the state, energy or chemical nature of something

raw material: a basic material that is used to produce goods

extraction: taking something away from somewhere else, especially using effort or force

economy: all the human-made systems that transfer and transform energy and matter to meet human needs

waste: unwanted or unusable materials

renewable resource: natural resources that can be regenerated in a human timescale

regenerate: the process of restoring and revitalising something

flow-limited: a situation where matter is only renewable if we use it at a slower rate than it regenerates

composting: the natural process of recycling organic matter, such as leaves and food scraps, into a valuable fertilizer that can enrich soil

landfill: the place where waste is disposed of by burying it

nonrenewable resource: natural resources that cannot be regenerated in a human timescale

fossil fuel: a non renewable energy source including coal, oil, and natural gas, formed over millions of years in the Earth's crust from decomposed plants and animals

stock-limited: a situation where matter is absolutely limited, as there is a finite amount

dredge: to remove sand, silt, mud, or other materials from the bottom of a body of water

urbanisation: the increase in the proportion of people living in towns and cities, along with the built environment

built environment: human-made structures or conditions in an area

ecosystem: the interaction of groups of organisms with each other and their physical environment

material footprint: the use of biomass, fossil fuels, metal ores, and non-metal ores, in tonnes per year

per capita: per person

reinforcing feedback: a situation where change in a system causes further changes that amplify the original change which can lead to tipping points in a system

Second Law of Thermodynamics: the total entropy or disorder in a system will increase over time

entropy: gradual decline into disorder

closed system: a system that can exchange energy (or information in social systems) with its surroundings, but do not exchange matter.

byproducts: an unintended product made during the production of something else

linear economy: an economic system where resources are extracted to make products that eventually end up as waste

mental models: a way of representing reality within one's mind

model: simplified representations of our world used to communicate ideas, understand complex processes and make projections or predictions

lithosphere: the solid, outer part of Earth

atmosphere: the gases surrounding the Earth

incinerator: a machine that burns waste at high temperatures until it is reduced to ash

hydrosphere: all the waters on Earth

runoff: the draining away of water and the substances carried in it from the surface of land, or structure

biosphere: all the living organisms on Earth

food chain: a series of organisms, each one dependent on the one before it as food; shows the transfer and transformation of energy and matter through living organisms in an ecosystem

pollution: the presence of a substance that has harmful effects on the environment

decompose: to break something into smaller parts, especially organic materials

assimilate: to take in and incorporate something into something else

organic waste: any material that easily breaks down in nature and comes from either a plant or an animal

solid waste: any discarded or unwanted materials

chemical waste: any discarded or unwanted chemical, especially those that cause damage to human health or the environment

synthetic: any material made artificially by chemical reaction

effluent: liquid waste discharged into a body of water

e-waste: electronic products that are unwanted, broken or at the end ofo their useful life

circular: having the form of a circle; in this course, closing the loop on linear economic systems

biodiversity: the variety of living organisms on Earth

biodiversity hotspot: an area of the world with a very high level of biodiversity

climate change: a change in the temperature and precipitation patterns in an area, in recent times due to human economic activities

degradation: the process of breaking down or disintegrating

habitat: the natural home or environment of an animal, plant, or other organism

Global North: a group of countries with high incomes and more industrialisation and service-based economies; these countries bear most responsibility for exceeding planetary boundaries

circular economy: an economic system where nature is regenerated and materials are kept in circulation through maintenance, reuse, recycling, composting, and other processes

Global South: a group of countries with low-middle incomes and less industrialisation; most of the global population lives in these countries, but these countries bear little responsibility for exceeding planetary boundaries

feedback: when outputs of a system circle back to impact inputs to the same system

economic growth: an increase in the total value of goods and services produced in a period of time

gross domestic product (GDP): the total value of all goods and services produced in an economy in a time period

efficiency: the ratio of resource inputs compared to outputs

absolute decoupling: a situation where economic growth increases, but resource use or some other environmental variable declines

rebound effect: a situation where efficiency gains in an input are counteracted by increased consumption and production, resulting in even greater use of the input