CO2 Emissions From The World’s Most Used Building Material

adevarias
4 min readApr 25, 2022

The Impact of Concrete+Cement Making

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Difference between Concrete & Cement

While the terms are often used interchangeably, there is a major difference between these two items. Cement is an ingredient of concrete — considered to be the “glue” that binds all materials concrete it is made out of. These are called aggregates. Some aggregates concrete is composed of are sand, gravel or crushed stone, and water. By rehydrating both cement and concrete, a chemical reaction occurs that hardens more and more overtime.

But how much concrete do we really consume?

In the United States, most houses are built out of wood and gypsum. Therefore, for some, it’s hard to really believe that concrete is the most used building material. The reality of it is that in the entire world, concrete is the most consumed material, second only to water. There are three tons of it used yearly for every person on Earth. And it makes sense, think of foundations, bridges, and roads — these all take copious amounts of this combo. Our human lives are held by the strength of concrete+cement construction.

Ok, so how bad can it be?

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adevarias

Architectural designer crafting well-researched articles envisioning the future (and sometimes the past) of the built environment.