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Phoenix666 [soylentnews.org] writes:

IKEA made headlines when it openly mused about Western economies "reaching peak stuff" [treehugger.com], but they are by no means the only folks who think that our seemingly insatiable appetite for more and more stuff might finally be leveling out.

New figures from the UK's Office for National Statistics [ons.gov.uk] (ONS) suggest that the amount of raw materials consumed by the UK economy fell from 15 tonne per person in 2001 to just over 10 tonnes in 2013.

That's a pretty astounding drop.

True, there was this tiny thing called The Great Recession between then and now. But still, such a huge decrease in everything from steel to plastics to fuel and biomass suggests that something bigger (or maybe smaller?) is going on. Over at The Guardian, Patrick Collinson takes a deeper dive into the numbers [theguardian.com], noting among other things that the digitization of industries such as music, movies and more has led to a large decrease in raw materials within those industries. And also that industry has gotten better about using less material for each product created.

Have you reached peak stuff [treehugger.com]?

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