03 Stories

Follow the material

The index shows where things are. These follow how they connect — authored routes through the same sites, read one hop at a time across the globe. Each begins somewhere a material is taken out of the ground and ends somewhere it is put back.

017 sites
The rock that feeds us
Almost all the phosphorus in the world's food comes out of a handful of pits. Follow it from the rock to the dinner plate to the lakebed it leaves behind.
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028 sites
The fuel cycle
Uranium is the one industrial material whose entire life we are obliged to track from ore to grave. Here is that loop, one site at a time.
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038 sites
Pit to hull
Iron ore is the largest solid commodity flow on Earth by mass. Follow it out of the Pilbara and watch it turn into ships and cars.
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049 sites
Gas to garbage
A hydrocarbon comes out of the North Sea and ends up in a landfill in Mumbai. Every step in between is a place you can photograph.
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Stories are read by scrolling, and the map is fixed while you read — the camera follows the chain rather than being flown by hand. To explore the sites freely instead, open the constellation.

Follow the material

The rock that feeds us

The fuel cycle

Pit to hull

Gas to garbage