Tracing the global tin flow network: highly concentrated production and consumption

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2021.105495Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Global tin reserve is overmined, suffering from a continuous decline.

  • Tin production and consumption is characterized by high concentration in globe.

  • Regional development of tin industry is associated with the GDP per capita.

  • Potential risks behind tin consumption cannot be ignored.

  • More attention shall be paid to the development of recycled tin.

Abstract

Tin is closely associated with daily life and scientific and technological development, being widely applied in electronic products (e.g., computers, mobile phones) and high-end manufacturing, but the sustainability of tin resources has aroused global concern. To understand the global tin trade and its implications, a material flow analysis framework is established in this study, to analyze the tin flow among countries during 1999–2018. Tin production is concentrated in nine countries, which account for more than 90% of global tin production; while tin consumption is concentrated in ten countries, which account for some 80% of total tin consumption. In addition, the level of economic development measured in GDP/capita, is found to be highly correlated with the role of a country in the global tin trade. The countries with low per capita GDP are usually principal tin producers and suppliers; while eight of the world's top ten refined tin consumers (accounting for about 70% of global consumption) are those with high per capita GDP. In addition, a significant correlation between refined tin consumption and GDP per capita is observed in developing countries, but this correlation weakens in developed countries. This study not only fills the data gap in global tin flow but also provides a reference and basis for tin resource decision making and for follow-up research on tin material flow.

Introduction

Tin was first used as bronze in 3500 B.C.E, but the pure metal was not used until about 600 B.C.E. (USGS, 2019). Nowadays, tin has become an indispensable material in the development of modern industry and technology. Simultaneously, the scope of tin's application has been constantly enlarging, having been extended from traditional use for solders, tin plate, chemicals, brass & bronze, and float glass to batteries, solar PVs, thermoelectric materials, hydrogen generation, carbon capture catalysts, water treatment, etc. (ITA, 2018).

Global refined tin consumption reached 381 Gg in 2017 (CNMIA, 2018), and is anticipated to increase in the coming years, largely because of the use of tin in high technology (ITA, 2018); consumption is estimated to be over 400 Gg by 2025 (ITA, 2019). It has been noted that global tin reserves are predicted to have a static lifetime of only 22 years (Izard and Müller, 2010). However, few reports or data regarding these issues and the associated global tin flow network are available or complete, in current literatures (Zhang, 2019; Zhang et al., 2014). Zhang (2019), for example, introduced the issue of global tin flow only from a macroscopic perspective, and specific data for tin flow were unavailable. Zhang et al. (2014) only analyzed partial data in some countries, without establishing any complete tin flow network. Neither has the supply-and-demand pattern of global tin resources been clarified in current literatures as well (Zhang, 2019; Zhang et al., 2014). Therefore, it is highly important to trace the global tin flow network, from production to consumption, to fill the above-mentioned knowledge gaps, as the security and sustainability of tin resources are matters that affect the development of the global economy and society.

Material flow analysis (MFA) is a systematic analysis tool for tracing the flows and stocks of material within a given temporal and spatial boundary. MFA has been extensively applied in studies on the global and national material flows of lithium, lead, copper, tungsten, aluminum, etc. (Chen et al., 2016a, 2016b; Lopez et al., 2015; Sun et al., 2017; Tang et al., 2020). And the analysis of material flow is conducive to the execution of precautionary measures for resource production and recycling (Barrett and Scott, 2012; Lenzen et al., 2012). The physical trade balance (PTB) has been widely used as an approach to estimate resource flows (e.g., oil, steel) between countries to identify the dominant suppliers and consumers (Dittrich and Bringezu, 2010; Muñoz et al., 2009; Xu and Zhang, 2007).

Furthermore, the importance of metals to an economy and the development of human society has been greatly emphasized (Graedel and Cao, 2010; Chen et al., 2016a; Harper et al., 2015), and many studies have indicated a significant correlation between metal use and gross domestic product (GDP) (Crompton, 2015; Steinberger et al., 2010; Zheng et al., 2018), or per capita GDP (Graedel and Cao, 2010). Zheng et al., al.(2018) reported that a 1 percent growth in GDP contributed to a 1.9 percent rise in a country's metal footprint in the year before GDP/capita reached a peak value of 15,000 US$ (Zheng et al., 2018). The last two decades have witnessed a rapid growth in global GDP/capita (WB, 2019), and refined tin consumption thus increased by over 50% from 1999 to 2017 (CNMIA, 2018). Increased consumption has led to a rapid decline of tin reserves, from 7700 Gg (1999) to 4800 Gg (2017). Under these circumstances, it is essential to understand the relationship between the economy and current consumption patterns (or supply and demand) of global tin, because tin will be of great significance to the future development of any economy and the sustainable utilization of tin resources is essential.

Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identify the distribution of tin reserves, explain the evolution of tin production and consumption, and elucidate the tin flow between countries during 1999 to 2018, in order to provide policy makers a basis for improving the current policies and measures for tin resource management and development. The main findings presented in this article are essential for carrying out further study on the prospects for tin supply (production) and demand (consumption), which in turn will provide a reference for the sustainable development and utilization of global tin resources.

Section snippets

System boundary

The system boundary of this study consists of both spatial and temporal boundaries. Regarding the spatial boundary (Sun et al., 2017, 2018, 2019), global tin production and consumption are highly localized. For this reason, nine countries (Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Peru, and Thailand) contributing at least 90% of global tin production and ten countries (United States, China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Korea, Netherlands, Singapore, and Spain)

Global tin flow network: uneven supply-and-demand patterns

Over the past two decades, the global tin flow network has been characterized by an uneven supply-and-demand pattern. An overview of the global tin flow network is shown in Fig. 1. Regarding global tin mining and production, China, Indonesia, Brazil, Malaysia, Bolivia, and Australia have dominated the global mining production; and China, Indonesia, Peru, Brazil, Malaysia, Bolivia, and Thailand have dominated the global refined tin production. Myanmar was identified as a Black Swan in the tin

Conclusions

This study investigated the global tin flow network over the last two decades, and the following conclusions can be drawn:

First, the geographical distribution of tin reserves is restricted to a few localities, resulting in a high concentration of mine production and refined tin production in a small number of countries. Global tin reserves are located mainly in Latin America, Southeast Asia, and East Asia (mainly in China), and nine countries—— Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Peru, Brazil,

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Haodong Li: Investigation, Formal analysis, Visualization, Writing – original draft. Wenqing Qin: Supervision, Funding acquisition, Writing – review & editing. Jinhui Li: Conceptualization, Methodology. Zuyuan Tian: Investigation, Formal analysis. Fen Jiao: Visualization, Writing – review & editing. Congren Yang: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing – review & editing, Data curtion.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgments

This research was funded by Key Laboratory of Hunan Province for Clean and Efficient Utilization of Strategic Calcium-containing Mineral Resources (Grant no. 2018TP1002), and Co-Innovation Centre for Clean and Efficient Utilization of Strategic Metal Mineral Resources.

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