Science Stats Environment

Humans’ stuff vastly outweighs humans

Human-made things are 60,000 times as heavy as humans themselves

pile of junk

TONS OF STUFF  The combined mass of all human-created products has eclipsed the mass of nature-made products, including humans, researchers estimate.

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By Thomas Sumner

- More than 2 years ago

Have you ever felt weighed down by your material possessions? The boundless variety of stuff that humans manufacture — tractors, buildings, ballpoint pens, Hello Kitty backpacks — has serious heft: 30 trillion metric tons, a new study estimates.