what is light and heavy industries?

Answer 1

Heavy industry does not have a single fixed meaning compared to light industry. In general, heavy industry is viewed as more capital intensive, as requiring a larger fixed facility, and as having a larger environmental impact than light industry.

Light industry is usually less capital intensive than heavy industry, and is more consumer-oriented than business-oriented (i.e., most of light industry products are produced for end users rather than as a semi products for use by other industries). Light industry has less environmental impact than heavy industry and is more tolerated in residential areas. Some economic definitions state that it is a "manufacturing activity that use moderate amounts of partially processed materials to produce items of relatively high value per unit weight".

In the academic study of economics, heavy industries are often differentiated from light industries as heavy industries are capital intensive, and light industries are labor intensive. Light industries are easier to relocate than heavy industry, and can be built with less investment.

This definition is not universal, however, as some sources refer to heavy industries as referring to the weight or volume of the products handled. The British Geographic Society, for example, listed several potential ways of measuring heavy versus light industry. One measure is the weight per cost of their products. For instance, one dollar buys more mass of steel or fuel than of drugs or textiles. Another is the weight of material handled per employee or the cost of materials as a proportion of gross value output.

Heavy industry can be also understood as that which produces products for other industries instead of end users. The outputs of steel mills or chemical plants, for example, are generally sold to other manufacturing, service, or wholesale trade businesses as opposed to retail consumers.

Heavy industry is often defined by governments and planners in terms of its impacts on the environment. These definitions concentrate on the seriousness of any capital investment required to begin production or of the ecological effect of its associated resource gathering practices and by-products. In these senses, the semiconductor industry is regarded as "heavier" than the consumer electronics industry even though microchips are much more expensive by weight than the products they control.

Heavy industry is also sometimes a special designation in local zoning laws.

Many pollution control laws are based on heavy industry, since heavy industry is usually blamed for pollution more than any other economic activity, rightly or not.

Answer 2

Heavy Industry Definition

Answer 3

i admire the 1st answer, and choose to characteristic examples that a typical gentle industry may be maximum of Silicon valley, and accepted heavy industry may be a variety of of the Hudson valley.