What is the trend in material reserve?

The following is a broad-trend towards material reserve and usage today.

• Copper, Silver, Tungsten, Tin and Mercury are rarely available today.
• Iron and Aluminium are the most widely available material
• Steel consumption is doubling in every 20 years
• Aluminium consumption is doubling in every 9 years
• Polymer consumption is increasing at an even faster rate, it is doubling in almost every 4 years

The designers are taking the following steps to encounter the shortage in material
supply:

• Material Efficient Design: Use less material - for example, for a good surface property use cheap substrate and good surface finish
• Substitution: Substitute rarer materials by the more available ones - for example, copper by aluminium, steel by plastic
• Recycling: stress on more recyclable material like Aluminium