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 Half of the 100.6bn tonnes of materials were sand, clay, gravel and cement for building, plus minerals quarried for fertiliser. Photograph: Zoonar GmbH/Alamy
January 30, 2020
sprep-pa

The amount of material consumed by humanity has passed 100bn tonnes every year, a report has revealed, but the proportion being recycled is falling.The climate and wildlife emergencies are driven by the unsustainable extraction of fossil fuels, metals, building materials and trees. The report’s authors warn that treating the world’s resources as limitless is leading towards global disaster. The materials used by the global economy have quadrupled since 1970, far faster than the population, which has doubled.

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