A global shortage of sand is prompting black-market gangs to steal large amounts from rivers and beaches. Scientists are warning that the global supply of sand is slipping through our fingers.
Statistics show that worldwide, we go through 50 billion tons of sand every year – twice the amount produced by every river in the world during the same period.
According to writer and journalist Vince Beiser, who wrote a book on the subject, “Sand is the essential ingredient that makes modern life possible. And we are starting to run out.”
That’s mainly because the number and size of cities is exploding, especially in the developing world, Beiser told Business Insider.
“Every year there are more people on the planet, and every year more of them move to cities. Since 1950, the world’s urban population has ballooned to over 3.9 billion from 746 million,” he said.
The demand for construction aggregates will rise by 5.2 percent annually to 51.7 billion tons in 2019, according to researcher Freedonia Group. Some estimate that sand’s share of the aggregate business is already worth $70 billion in annual sales.
Up to 90 percent of the world’s beaches have shrunk by an average of 40 meters since 2008. Popular shores have replenished their dying beaches with even more sand, imported from elsewhere. Up to 70 percent of Southern California’s beaches could be completely eroded by 2100.
China has used more sand in recent years than the United States did throughout the 20th century. In India, sand has become such a hot commodity that it has been taken over by organized crime, which illegally mines and sells it on the black market. The Sand Mafia, India’s strongest criminal organization, employs 75,000 people to dive for sand in rivers. Divers work 12-hour days, diving up to 200 times and making only $15 per boatload.
Richest 1% will own two-thirds of global wealth by 2030 https://on.rt.com/92ub
The UN Environmental Program has already suggested better pricing and taxing on sand mining. They also recommended an immediate need to create regulations in all countries, as well as in international waters.
“We’re on track to be a planet of at least nine billion people in the next 20 years. Most of them are going to want to consume resources the way we do in the Western world, and that is just physically impossible,” said Beiser.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jox7Ctq1ECs&w=560&h=315]
Those investment banks are motherfuckers aren’t they? Not to mention the whores that carry water for them writing shit like this. Next thing you know, they’ll be trying to tell you that water is scarce, or salt.
“Next thing you know, they’ll be trying to tell you that water is scarce, or salt.”
According to them there just isn’t enough to go around that’s why we have to increase immigration.
Yeah, I’m trying to figure that one out too!
Depopulate – get rid of the breeders: Baby Mama’s / Mexicans / Somali’s – a good start.
We’re running out of sand? Are you shitting me? Is this one of those stories some joker planted to see if the media was stupid enough to run it?
The entire northern third of Africa is sand.
I don’t think we’re running out of sand but often it isn’t located where it is needed. And construction aggregates is only sand in a very generic sense. Entire article is misleading and best.
Apparenlty it is the type of sand we are running out of. I saw a documentary on this somewhere recently – the Sahara type sand is very smooth, rounded and in plentiful supply. But that type of sand is not the type required for building and mixing for concrete etc. That type of sand is rough and binds with the other materials properly. That is what is running out.
https://viewfromthewing.boardingarea.com/2018/06/15/united-ceo-fined-58625-for-stealing-sand-from-public-beach-for-his-mansions-yard/
http://coastalcare.org/2013/09/sand-thieves-are-eroding-worlds-beaches-for-castles-of-cash-2/
It’s not as crazy as it sounds. In conversation with an underground mining tech that travels world-wide, he mentioned an underground aggregate mine. I skipped a couple beats before I realized that aggregate (sand & gravel) doesn’t naturally occur underground; it’s made by glacial activity on the surface of the earth thousands of years ago.
I asked him how does aggregate form underground? He said it doesn’t but aboveground sand and gravel quarries are depleted and transportation costs become prohibitive shipping aggregate long distances from the remaining quarries. From a logistics angle, 60 miles is the outer limits to economically transport sand by truck in North America although marine transport is cheaper and sand is barged from Vancouver Island to California. So, they drill, blast, crush and screen granite into various sizes. Because of NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) they can’t do this on surface (dust and noisy blasts) and so they do it underground.
And, not just any type of sand can be used for construction. Sand that has its rough edges worn off by wind or water cannot be used for concrete. Golf courses in the Sahara import their sand from Georgia because Sahara sand is so smooth that golf balls sink beneath it.
Welcome to ‘peak sand.’
Golf courses in the Sahara, huh? You have been drinking the Kool-Aid
Stop the breeding of the low IQ Africans and Middle East Musloids.
Just think of the world populated by these sub-humans. Yes, that is what Saudi’s and Qatari’s, etc. called them.
Like Saudis and Qataris should talk. If it weren’t for Aramco, the Saudis would still be fighting on horses over patches of desert like Somali warlords.
The concept that there are just too many humans on the planet is about the only thing that TPTB seem to have right. We have created a world where we have temporarily suspended the survival of the fittest.
I don’t think there is much that can done about it on a personal level other than to wait for things to collapse. Could be famine, could be war, could be a pandemic, who knows, but something will come along to reduce our numbers.
Hopefully the herd will be culled of the rent seekers and the low IQ.
It’s not right though. There aren’t too many people per se; there’s just too many stupid people and not enough smart people to generate resources for the dumb ones. If the world was populated with people who were 100 IQ average, scarcity wouldnt be an issue because we’d be constantly out-inventing scarcity. Everything we have we owe to a very small handful of very intelligent people who were able to “create” new “resources” as if out of thin air. Those really smart people are from the uppermost edge of a bell curve that is slowly shifting lower. As the average global IQ sinks down below 85, lack of what I call “sustaining ingenuity” is becoming more of an issue. This is definitely being amplified by cultural marxism which is effectively turning smart people into dummies (Intellectual-Yet-Idiot). But other forms of propaganda do the same thing, ie carb culture, flat earth, plate tectonics, etc.
Knowledge is power. Wealth is power. There is power in numbers. Those who hold the power today don’t want the rest of us to have ANY power, which we might possibly use to challenge their own power. High IQs are a threat to the status quo, and therefore cannot be tolerated. TPTB are very good at keeping us poor, keeping us divided and maybe even better at keeping us stupid. Turn off the damn TV for fuck’s sake! It’s the fountain of stupidity.
TJF has it right. The only question for me is how to stay out of the way.
I bought a quarter acre in the Sahara. Now I am a billionaire.
You can too-ask me how.
https://inhabitat.com/11-green-building-materials-that-are-way-better-than-concrete/
Not all of the eleven items at the link are better than concrete for most purposes. I knew a guy who was a big proponent of ashcrete. Ferrock and hempcrete are likely to be the most eye-catching. Straw bales are not suitable for numerous types of buildings.
The need for sand is not a technical problem. The need for sand is a business problem. Construction companies prefer to stick with their old business models even when the technology for replacing concrete has been proven.
The Earth Is Running Out Of Sand And It Could Cause A Global Crisis
We need to ban volleyball courts and horseshoe pits.
For the chilluns.