We have a big problem with almost all public unaware that a sand crisis is looming and is an underrated threat to our civilization. The United Nations Environmental Programme warned today that urgent action is needed to prevent a sand crisis. Sand is critical in making concrete, which builds our infrastructure and homes, and is used to produce glass, electronics, and aeronautics.
Sand is mined all over parts of the earth. It has the most significant volume of solid material extracted after water. Our use of sand has tripled in the past two decades. There is also a finite amount of sand made by eroding forces over millions of years; it is not a renewable resource. And environmental and climate costs such as damage to seas, rivers, beaches, and the land are not sustainable.
Perhaps if we recognize the threat we face, we can figure out how to reuse, recycle and reduce the devastating impacts that sand extraction causes.
GENEVA (Reuters) - A U.N. report on Tuesday called for urgent action to avert a "sand crisis," including a ban on beach extraction as demand surges to 50 billion tonnes a year amid population growth and urbanisation.
Sand is the most exploited natural resource in the world after water, but its use is largely ungoverned, meaning we are consuming it faster than it can be replaced by geological processes that take hundreds of thousands of years, the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) report says.
UNEP's Pascal Peduzzi who coordinated the report written by 22 authors said that some of the impacts of over-exploitation were already being felt. In the Mekong River - the longest in Southeast Asia -sand extraction was causing the delta to sink, leading to salinisation of previously fertile lands.
In a Sri Lankan river, sand removal had reversed the water flow, meaning that ocean water was heading inland and bringing salt-water crocodiles with it, he told journalists.
Demand is now seen as shifting to Africa where villagers often remove sand from beaches to build growing cities. In some cases, this can make coastlines more vulnerable to the impact of climate change, such as more powerful storms, the report said.
Among the report's recommendations were a ban on beach extraction and the creation of an international standard for marine dredging that can harm ocean biodiversity.
Instead of burying the glass in landfills that we put in recycle bins, we recycle them into sand. The technology is there.