China Emerges as the World’s Largest Material Extractor: A Closer Look at Domestic Extraction of Materials in 2023

China has emerged as the world’s largest extractor of domestic materials, according to the UNEP’s Global Material Flows Database in 2023. The country extracted a staggering 34.2 billion tonnes of materials, including biomass, fossil fuels, metal ores, and non-metallic minerals. This amount is more than four times the extraction of the next two largest countries, India (8.03 billion tonnes) and the United States (7.98 billion tonnes). In 2023, India surpassed the United States to become the second largest extractor of these materials for the first time.

When examining the domestic extraction of materials per capita, Australia topped the list with 102 tonnes per capita, followed by Canada with 67 tonnes, and then China with 24 tonnes per capita. In terms of the types of materials extracted, China’s mix is mostly composed of non-metallic materials, constituting 70 percent of the total. This category includes sand, gravel, and clay used for construction and industrial purposes. On the other hand, Australia’s primary source is metal ores, making up around 53 percent of the country’s total extraction, including iron, aluminum, copper, and other non-ferrous metals.

Globally, a total of 104.1 billion tonnes of biomass, fossil fuels