Material World : A substantial story of our past and future

By Ed Conway

This is an incredible book about the materials that make our world possible and how little we realise what an outsized role these materials play in our lives. We all seem to live our lives online and are led to believe that our world is more and more service-driven and our consumption is changing, but nothing could be further from the truth.

The book looks at 6 materials that make our modern world possible without which we would not be able to live the way we do today. Also, the havoc that the extraction of these materials wreaks on the environment.

Sand

Sand is important but also extremely varied. There is sand that is used for making glass, there is sand that is used for construction and then there is sand that is purified to pure silicon to make chips. Not all sand is equal and that is perhaps the first thing one needs to understand.

Sand is very important as a construction material. None of our buildings would be possible without using sand as a binding agent.

One of sand’s greatest gifts to us is glass. So much of our life is different because of glass and manufacturing techniques that need glass and mirrors. We do not even realise this because of how hidden it is. The discovery of glass changed civilisation. The entire internet operates on fibreglass cables running around the world. We would not have the internet without glass! Not to mention we would not be able to any silicon chips without silicon.

The production of electronics requires 100% pure silicon and this requires a lot of purification and the entire production process itself takes several weeks and involves the longest supply chain in the world.

Sand mining is a dirty industry which generates a huge amount of pollution. Sand demand from the construction sector has led to sand mafias. There are illegal dredging that is undertaken in ecologically sensitive sites.

Salt

Salt is perhaps one of the oldest materials that humans have exploited on the planet. It is important for healthy living and our body derives several micro-nutrients from Salt. Salt was so important that the Roman legions were paid in Salt where the term salary comes from.

Salt was so important that taxing salt was the greatest source of income for many empires across the world.

Salt was traditionally mined by creating pools and drying ocean water. The huge demand for salt has meant that we have found salt mines and salt flats and exploited them for what they offer.

Iron

Iron is one of those materials that we are constantly surrounded with. If there is a ceiling above you, possibilities are that it is reinforced with iron within, unless it is made completely of wood. Even if it is made of wood it is most likely held together by Iron nails. There are some construction techniques where it might be possible to build a roof without using Iron but it is hard to find in the modern world.

The most ubiquitous manifestation of iron in our world today is in the form of steel. Iron ore is often high in Carbon and this makes iron brittle and easy to break. But by heating Iron, the carbon content can be reduced and add some Chromium and voila you got Steel! That excess carbon finds its way into the atmosphere as CO2. Steel production has become one of the biggest contributors to pollution on the planet.

Having said that, our thirst for this material is near infinite. Our vehicles, our electronics and even our zippers are made out of Iron. Modern life would cease to exist without it.

Iron mining is extremely extractive on the land but at the same time, it causes immense pollution when being turned into metal.

Copper

The author starts the journey of Copper at one of the largest mines in the world where dump trucks carrying 400 tonnes of ore drive out with freshly blasted ore. Without Copper, we would not have access to electricity. When wound copper is rotated in between a magnet, electricity is generated. It is the foundation of almost all of the electricity production and the extent to which we have gone to extract this resource is incredible.

Copper is rarer than iron so the quantum of ore or material that is extracted is much greater and most of this is allowed to accumulate on land dumps after the metal is extracted. This not only destroys ecology but also has the potential to leach into groundwater systems and make the entire area unsafe.

Oil

There was the Iron age, the Copper age and the Oil age. Oil provides perhaps the greatest density of energy apart from Nuclear Energy. This along with the relative safety of using it has made it the fuel of choice across the planet.

There was a time 100 years ago when you could find oil just by digging a few tens of feet. Today not only do we dig thousands of feet but also separate it from rock using steam in a process called Fracking.

Oil extraction and then the refining process to produce petrol, diesel, etc is incredibly bad for the environment and has a huge impact on the climate. Fracking makes this all the worse since it uses up a lot of water as well in the process. Water that is eventually left unusable.

Lithium

Lithium has been turned into a precious resource by the increasing push to move towards an electric world. Having said that the production of lithium is just as bad for the environment as any other material that we have discussed.

It presents all the same problems that the extraction of Copper poses to the natural world. In the pursuit of electrification, the downsides are being ignored and often undertaken in non-western nations to avoid strict environmental laws.

The book covers how these materials are extracted, how they get used and what they do to the environment in great detail. None of us can go a single day today without using all of these materials.

It is important to first realise and become conscious of how we are dependent on these materials before we can think about reducing our footprint.