Environmental Risks and Challenges of Anthropogenic Metals Flows and Cycles - Factsheet

The unique properties of metals make them essential for many applications and future global demand is predicted to increase. Given this relevance the report of UNEP’s International Resource Panel on “Environmental Risks and Challenges of Anthropogenic Metals Flows and Cycles” focuses on the environmental impacts related to metals and means of reducing these impacts. It confirms that anthropogenic metal cycles can have orders of magnitude larger than natural metal cycles. Emissions to the environment, however, are roughly of the same order of magnitude as natural emissions. Nevertheless, the global primary production of metals shows a large share of the world’s energy use and causes severe local environmental impacts.