The current storage system seems a little bit silly. When your colonists bring items to the storage dump, the items magically disappear to an infinite storage system, ready to be sent across the map to build something or into space to traders. I think that you should have to at least build bins or grain silos to store your various resources.
However, when you get to the other thing that seems silly about the current storage system, namely how you use the resources, there seems to be a slightly larger problem. Construction would be changed significantly without the magic allocation to new construction projects, and it appears to take no infrastructure to send things into orbit. All things considered, given that you can sell prisoners to slavery, your colonists should have no problem getting off the planet as soon as they get a coms console.
On the original topic of my post, though, it is possible that there needs to be a fleshing out of the resource system or it could be that it needs to be left abstract for gameplay reasons. I, personally, think that it would add depth if it was fleshed out, but there are currently no threads discussing the topic.
Storage system is being reworked.
Sending things into orbit is a game logic necessity, otherwise you would have to remove traders from game.