A planetary atlas of material flowsOpening this view…
Start with an everyday object or material.
Jump directly to a material, regional account or named facility.
Discover what this place extracts, makes, imports, uses and sends onward. Connect its material flows with the wider world.
Total tonnes show the scale of an economy’s material flows. Per-person values show that scale relative to population. The two views can reveal very different patterns.
Material can remain in roads, buildings and products for years. Continue below to distinguish annual flows, accumulated stocks and measured waste streams.
Compare the scale of material use over time. Switch to a per-person view to account for population.
Material use and material footprint answer different questions. The footprint includes upstream extraction outside the consuming country; it is model-based. It is not added to domestic material consumption. Gaps remain empty and negative source values are preserved.
The series has 55 annual observations where available. This is a dated source release, not a live measurement. Country and global totals may not reconcile exactly across accounting concepts.
Open national and city records for waste composition, collection coverage and treatment methods.
Checking available records…
These records describe the world or a sample of reporting countries. They do not locate your household’s recycling or establish a city-to-facility route. The Waste & recovery view includes 262 World Bank city records. Detailed disposal districts and documented operator chains are available as British Columbia case studies.
The all-sector treatment series below covers European reporting countries. Municipal waste records are available more widely under Waste & recovery.
Explore production, trade, industrial operations and the materials held in our cities.
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