Sustainable Materials: with both eyes open

28th November 2011

Cambridge University has released a diagram that illustrates the consumption of raw materials by people in the UK. This chart doesn't use bars or pies however – it uses people. Dr Julian Allwood, leader of the Low Carbon Materials Processing Group at Cambridge University, and his team have used the number of people that could be sculpted from a material to demonstrate just how much we all use each year.

The amount of cement used per person in the UK could be sculpted into 13 people each, while the paper we each use could be made into four adults. Surprisingly the volume of metals such as steel and aluminium consumed annually could only produce an adult and child, and one child respectively.

This is due more to their density than to their rate of consumption however, the weight of steel used annually per head is three times that of paper in the UK, but it could be sculpted into fewer people. Plastic, though consumed at a rate six times slower than steel, could be made into the same number of sculptures.

All in all it adds up to an impressive material family and puts into perspective the huge volume of raw materials people use every year in the UK – demonstrating how important materials science is to everyone. The Materials KTN has tackled the issue of resource scarcity in the past, including at our 2011 Annual Event, Materials KTN members can download the event report here.

The PDF below gives an overview of the contents of the book. For more information on the book please go to https://withbotheyesopen.com/