ELEMENTS OF A NATIONAL MATERIALS POLICY

Seven major issue areas are considered as central to the formulation of a coherent and durable national materials policy. The are: 1) Abundances of mineral commodities and problems affecting future primary supplies. 2) Implications of environmental protection policy for national materials policy. 3) Recycling, substitution, synthesis, and design. 4) Extractive metallurgy and mineral processing. 5) Governmental incentives and controls. 6) International implications of materials policy issues. 7) Manpower and facilities. The issue areas are the subject of separate skeletal chapters representing the pooled views of special panels convened to identify, in their bare essentials, the more explicit issues and problems connected with their respective areas. Demographic, economic, environmental, educational, and international issues and variables are considered as appropriate to the content of all chapters even though these were in part the major charges of individual panels. Crucial to all seven issues is an eighth one, not the subject of separate study--the continuing growth of populations and demands for materials. Any viable materials policy must recognize and cope with the pressures created by increasing per capita consumption of materials, increasing numbers of consumers, and growing need for control of both.

• Corporate Authors:

  National Materials Advisory Board

  National Academy of Sciences
  Washington, DC  United States  20418
• Publication Date: 1972-8

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Materials; Natural resources; Policy
• Old TRIS Terms: Government policies; Materials national policy
• Subject Areas: Freight Transportation; Materials; Policy; Railroads;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00046417
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: NMAB 294
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Sep 18 1974 12:00AM