Materials flow (commodities) refers to the systematic analysis and quantification of the movement of physical commodity materials—such as metals, fossil fuels, biomass, or construction minerals—through extraction, processing, manufacturing, use, and end-of-life stages within an economic or geographic system. In research, materials flow studies employ mass-balance principles and standardized accounting frameworks (e.g., economy-wide material flow analysis) to track inputs, stocks, outputs, and losses, enabling assessment of resource efficiency, environmental pressures, and circularity potentials. This topic underpins indicators like material intensity, domestic material consumption, and provides a basis for evaluating decoupling of economic growth from resource use.
The circular economy—the idea of "reduce, reuse and recycle"—has long been promoted as one solution to the environmental crisis. Instead of the old "take, make, use, throw away" model, it aims to keep materials in play ...
Environment
Sep 11, 2025
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We extract more than 100 billion tonnes of raw materials from Earth each year, then throw most of them away. The "circular economy" offers a different approach: instead of the linear "take-make-waste" model, we could reuse, ...
Environment
Sep 8, 2025
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27 August 2025: International agricultural trade plays a central role in balancing global food supply and demand. Yet, with every shipment of crops crossing borders, the water used to produce them is virtually transferred ...
Environment
Aug 27, 2025
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All the critical minerals the U.S. needs annually for energy, defense and technology applications are already being mined at existing U.S. facilities, according to a new analysis published in the journal Science.
Earth Sciences
Aug 22, 2025
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Global supply chains account for 70% of world trade. They are the arteries of global capitalism, moving goods and services across borders multiple times before reaching consumers.
Environment
Jul 28, 2025
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A traditional economy follows a linear "take-make-use-dispose" path. A circular economy, in contrast, retains the value of materials and products within a supply chain for longer.
Environment
Jul 21, 2025
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Pressures such as population growth, urbanization, and land degradation are straining the global agrifood system, the network connecting all steps of the food supply chain from growing crops in the field to waste elimination ...
Ecology
Jun 23, 2025
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Only 9.5% of plastic materials produced globally in 2022 were manufactured from recycled materials. The findings, reported in Communications Earth & Environment, are part of a comprehensive analysis of the global plastics ...
Environment
Apr 10, 2025
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