An industry in which the final product weighs less or occupies less volume than the inputs

• A. Bulk-Gaining Industry
• B. Bulk-Heavy Industry
• C. Bulk-Reducing Industry
• D. Bulk-Export Industry

Answer: (C)

This is about how the weight or volume changes from inputs to the final product and how that affects where a plant sits. In a bulk-reducing industry, the processing step makes the product lighter or less bulky than the raw materials. Because bulky inputs are expensive to move, it makes economic sense to bring these heavy inputs to the processing site rather than ship large amounts of input material to a market with the final product. After processing, the lighter product is transported to customers.

A classic example is processing ore into refined metal: the ore is bulky and heavy, but the refined metal weighs less than the ore that was used to produce it, so locating near the ore source minimizes transport costs for the heavy inputs. In contrast, if an industry added weight to the product (bulk-gaining), it would tend to locate near markets so the heavier final product isn’t transported over long distances.