What causes raw material scarcity?

Raw material scarcity happens when we use up more raw materials than nature can give us back quickly.

Imagine you have a big jar full of jellybeans, that’s like Earth's raw materials. Every day, you take some jellybeans out to make your favorite candy, that’s like using raw materials to build things. But if you take too many jellybeans every day and don’t put any back in the jar, soon there won’t be enough jellybeans left for tomorrow.

Think of Earth as a big playground shared by everyone. If all your friends start taking more swings than they give back, like not letting other kids use the slide after they're done, eventually the swings and slides will run out because no one is giving them time to rest or be fixed.

Sometimes, people also forget to recycle or reuse things, it's like throwing away a toy instead of keeping it to play with again later. That means we have less raw materials for future games!

So, raw material scarcity happens when we use more than we replace, and we don’t take care of what we already have.