| Steel can be made with iron ore or with recycled scrap metal. A coal-fired power plant can only be run with freshly mined coal, since there's no such thing as recycling used coal—once it's burned it's gone forever. Looking at commodities through this lens changes the way you look at miners and might just lead you to alter your portfolio if you own any natural resource companies.
When it comes to commodities, metals quickly come to mind, including gold, silver, iron ore, copper, and many others. There is only a finite amount of each of these commodities in the Earth, which is good for companies that own notable reserves. However, the use of these materials generally doesn't destroy them, so they stick around and get recycled and reused...............................................Full Article: Source
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