Resources - Environmental Transformations - page 24

requires 100 million tons of each of these minerals
of an annual basis illustrates how resource
dependent modern industrial society has become.
Figure 2.6 illustrates the production levels
associated with a mineral that society is now
producing at unprecedented levels: hydraulic
cement. Since the mid-1980s the global production
of hydraulic cemen t 2 h as increased threefold to a
contemporary level of approximately 3500 million
tons a year (US Geological Survey, 2011). Cement
is a binding agent that is widely used in the building
industry (and in particular to produce concrete).
Rising levels of cement usage reflect the significant
building boom that modern economies have been
going through over the last 40 years, as property
development of various forms has become a
cornerstone of urban economies (see Plate 2.2 a nd
Chapter 6).

Figure 2.7 illustrates the changing global
patterns in the production of selected metallic
minerals. These key metallic resources have all
shown aggregate increases in their levels of extrac-
tion since the mid-1980s, with iron ore (a key
component in the iron and steel products that are
widely used in construction and infrastructure
projects) more than doubling in its levels of
production between 1985 and 2010. The physical
properties of metals mean that they can be used
in a wide range of contexts. Metals with high
levels of conductivity (such as copper) are used in
the production of electrical products. The metal
nickel is used in the production of stainless
steel, rechargeable batteries, coins and even electric
guitar strings. As humans continue to consume
an ever-expanding range of consumer goods,
from mobile phones and iPads to gold necklaces

Figure 2.5 World production of major non-metallic minerals (millions of tons) (excluding diamonds and
cement)
Source: Adapted from US Geological Survey, 2011