We do that constantly. By virtue of being warm blooded animals we are constantly giving off thermal energy to the environment. If I pick up a rock and throw it, I've just temporarily imbued it with kinetic energy. While humans may not be able to create electrical discharges into our environment, animals like electric eels certainly can. For matter, every time we breath in we take in oxygen from the air (transferring from non-living to living) and breath out carbon dioxide (transferring living to non-living). We shed skin cells and hair, not to mention feces and urine, giving matter to the environment around us. We have to drink water to live, so taking in non-living matter is essential to our survival.

Plants are an even more extreme example of taking non-living energy and matter and turning it into living material. They use energy from the sun to convert the carbon dioxide in the air into plant material and they do so with the help of water - all non-living sources that they convert into living matter. When they die they rot and convert back into non-living matter. The only way to separate living energy and matter from non-living environments is to completely remove anything that is alive.

Dr Tricia Gilliland thank you for your contribution to the discussion

Dead producers and consumers and their waste products provide matter and energy to decomposers. Decomposers transform matter back into inorganic forms that can be recycled within the ecosystem. So, the energy that enters an ecosystem as sunlight eventually flows out of the ecosystem in the form of heat.Each time something eats something else, food energy is transferred from one organism to another. The transfer of energy between organisms is a food chain. Ecosystem All the organisms in an area and the environment in which they live. The solar energy is captured by chlorophyll in the chloroplast of plant cells (producers). Through photosynthesis, glucose is produced. Animals could then use this glucose from producers to make their own energy through cellular respiration. This process occurs in the mitochondria of animal cells. The amount of energy at each trophic level decreases as it moves through an ecosystem. As little as 10 percent of the energy at any trophic level is transferred to the next level; the rest is lost largely through metabolic processes as heat. The amount of energy at each trophic level decreases as it moves through an ecosystem. As little as 10 percent of the energy at any trophic level is transferred to the next level; the rest is lost largely through metabolic processes as heat. All life relies on energy and its transfer between different organisms. This helps to maintain their highly ordered structures and systems. Each interdependent community of organisms interacts with other communities within its environment.