The UK economy used 613m tonnes of natural resources between 2007 and 2008 according to ONS environmental accounts published last week. Domestic material consumption fell by a record 67m tonnes during the period. Resource use had remained more or less unchanged for 10 years. The fall reflects decreases in the domestic extraction industry mainly regarding primary aggregates like crushed stone, sand and gravel.
Direct material input (DMI) which is the sum of domestic and imported primary resources totalled 781m tonnes of which domestic production accounted for 502m tonnes, down 9.9%, and imports 278m tonnes, down 5.1%. Total material requirement (TMR) fell between 2007 and 2008 by 6.3% to 1,974m tonnes.
Environmental taxes, which can be divided into energy, transport, pollution and resources, amounted to £38.5bn in 2008, an increase of £0.6bn on 2007 and 2.7% of GDP in 2008. Households are paying over half the environmental taxes at 55.1% which amounted to £20.9bn, followed by transport and communication at 15.8% or £5.98bn, the wholesale and retail trade at 6.8% or £2.6bn and manufacturing at 4.9% or £1.9bn. The construction industry is growing in its contributions to environmental taxes.
Industries spent a total of 4.6bn on environmental protection in 2007. The chemicals industry spent £655m, the food industry 457m and the energy production and water industries spent 1.8bn on environmental protection in 2007 mainly on waste management, other abatement activities and air and climate protection.
