Sand, Steel, and Cement: The Annual Production of the World’s Building Blocks
Essential Materials for City Construction
From the buildings around us to the sidewalks we walk on, sand, steel, and cement are an important foundation for all urbanization. Every year, the world produces an immense amount of all three materials in order to supply the continuous construction of human-built environments around the world.
Using data from the U.S. Geological Survey, this visualization shows the steel, sand, and cement produced in 2020, to help put in perspective the amount of raw materials we produce and ultimately consume every year.
The Concrete Facts of Cement
Cement is the indispensable glue that binds together the materials that make up concrete highways, sidewalks, and buildings.
With concrete being the world’s most consumed material (beaten only by water), it’s no wonder that the world produced 4.1 billion tonnes of cement in 2020.
2020 Cement Production by Country
| Rank | Country | Cement Production (in million tonnes) |
|---|---|---|
| #1 |  China | 2,200 |
| #2 |  India | 340 |
| #3 |  Vietnam | 96 |
| #4 |  United States | 90 |
| #5 |  Indonesia | 73 |
| #6 |  Turkey | 66 |
| #7 |  Iran | 60 |
| #8 |  Brazil | 57 |
| #9 |  Russia | 56 |
| #10 |  Japan | 53 |
| #11 |  Egypt | 50 |
| #12 |  South Korea | 50 |
| Other countries | 890 |
Source: USGS
While cement-based concrete has a variety of benefits like being fire-proof, hydrographic, and frost-resistant, the IEA estimates that in 2019 the cement sector emitted 2.4 GtCO2, which accounted for 7% of global CO2 emissions. The production of concrete also requires high amounts of water, with calculations from 2012 finding that the concrete industry’s water withdrawals made up 9% of all industry water withdrawals (1.7% of total global water withdrawal).
To combat high carbon emissions and water consumption in concrete production, Swedish power company Vattenfall has developed a concrete mix which reduces the amount of cement needed, and as a result cuts down CO2 emissions by around 25%. Shifting the world’s concrete production to this new method could be the first step in greatly reducing cement and concrete’s impact on the environment.
Steel Recyclability Steals the Show
While cement is the most commonly used material in the world, steel is the most commonly used metal. With 1.8 billion tonnes produced last year, steel fulfills a variety of structural and construction needs, along with being an essential material for the production of vehicles, mechanical equipment, and domestic appliances.
One of steel’s greatest strengths is its ability to be infinitely recycled, making it the most recycled material in the world with new steel products containing an average of 30% recycled steel. While the world produced 1.8 billion tonnes of steel in 2020, since 1900 the steel industry has recycled over 25 billion tonnes of steel scrap, reducing iron ore and coal consumption by 35 billion and 18 billion tonnes respectively.
Global Steel Recovery Rates by Sector
| Sector | Steel Recovery Rate |
|---|---|
| Automotive | 90% |
| Machinery | 90% |
| Construction | 85% |
| Electrical and domestic appliances | 50% |
Source: World Steel Association
The steel industry is also highly aware of reducing its environmental impact, with steel plants reusing the heat and electricity from process gases to provide between 60-100% of the plant’s electricity requirements. Along with this, ~90% of water used by the steel industry is returned to the source after being cleaned and cooled.
Yet steel production still emits around two tonnes of CO2 for every tonne of steel produced, largely due to the majority of the world’s steel production taking place in China’s coal-reliant plants. However, fossil-free steel is on the horizon, with carmaker Volvo partnering with the Swedish steelmakers SSAB to explore the development of fossil-free steel for the automotive industry.
More than Beaches
Completing the trio of essential city-building materials is industrial sand and gravel, with 265 million tonnes of the material produced in 2020. Primarily composed of quartz, feldspar, and other minerals and rock fragments, industrial sand and gravel is also called silica sand or quartz sand.
“It’s actually the most important solid substance in the world because without sand, we have no modern civilization.”
– Vince Beiser
While steel and cement are opaquely visible in their end products in our cities, industrial sand and gravel primarily makes up the transparent glass walls and windows of our world. It also serves essential functions as foundry sand, forming molds and patterns for various metal castings.
Just like steel and cement, industrial sand and gravel is an essential building block of the cities we live in. As the world continues its shift towards reducing carbon emissions, it is clear that these essential materials cannot be replaced, and rather must be improved upon.
