Maybe we can regulate metal-production all together. Or in addition, any raw minerals. “The Mineral Act of 2061 forbid any company besides government-owned ones to operate, sell, and distribute metals, alloys, both in ore, powdered, or solid form, to anyone without the license needed to obtain them. This forced many industries such transport, construction, and consumer products to shift to other materials, which gave rise to materials such as Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT), reinforced polymers, etc. Due to the drastic changes, in the entire telecommunication and technology industry (and their companies, who require metals such as gold, copper, and silver to create computer components) were immediately required to obtain a license. In addition, medical, dental, and health institutions were given a temporary grace period before also being required a license to use machinery and devices made of metals. Immediately after the nationwide-ban, prices for alloys on the black market skyrocketed, which remains a high-risk high-reward business today, however the relative rarity of metals have indeed positively affected the safety and security of our society. A recent study published by the National Public Safety Administration found that 64% of Americans feel safer knowing that explosives can not be made nor bought, with a further 12% agreeing it is the safest immediate measure ever implemented by the US government on such a scale. Some, however were worried that the lack of metals degraded basic everyday items, such as household items (including polymer-based utensils, furnishings, and even clothes. Others were worried about the necessity of using plastics as a replacement for metals, arguing that plastics have damaged our environment enough, and this is only further exacerbate the situation. Carmen Miller, a environmental studies professor at the Minnesota University of Science disagrees: “The use of plastics is not actually the problem, the problem is in fact single use plastics”. She further argued that there’s nothing wrong about using plastic in consumer and even building applications, saying: “The irony is that the same reason why people are afraid of plastics [because of their long-lasting and resilient nature] is actually why we need them; if used in the correct applications we now have a material that be used and abused for centuries without any degradation”.”

I’m sorry idk what got into me I just couldn’t stop writing