SecondA few years ago at the latest, when the so-called strange news that Saudi Arabia and Dubai imported sand from Australia attracted media attention, the topic had already attracted the attention of the general public: sand is more than just sand. On the contrary, desert sand is not suitable for the production of concrete, because the sand grains are ground too round by the wind.Because the entire city was built from scratch, not only in the Middle East, but also in China, construction sand is scarce resource Become, its price continues to rise.
Special sand is also needed to produce toothpaste and paper. During the fracturing process, sand is needed to keep the cracks open, that is, to extract oil and natural gas from shale. When beach volleyball players participated in the Olympics, the President of Turkey built a beach for his summer residence in the Aegean Sea. Only the softest and lightest sand was good enough. He was transported from a long distance.
Deadly ecological consequences
American journalist Vince Beiser investigates how a large amount of material sand developed into a scarce raw material for our civilization. He can do this without going back to history. After the Romans invented concrete, concrete did not become the main building material until the 20th century, and it showed a sharp upward trend. It is said that between 2011 and 2013 alone, China used more concrete than the United States between 1900 and 2000. .
The large-scale production of glass and even the large-scale production of computer chips require particularly fine quartz sand, which are all recent developments. Even beaches were highly valued in the 19th century, when they were found to be relaxing places in England. From the seaside resort there, the idea spread all over the world in the 20th century.
7500 billiards sand
When the image of tourists does not meet their own requirements, people will take the initiative to become landscape architects. A hundred years ago, Waikiki Beach in Hawaii was filled with sand from other beaches, some of which were brought in from California. Miami Beach was built on a swampy wilderness filled with sea sand and mud representing real estate companies until the subsoil was stable enough for intensive development. The artificial island built in front of Dubai today, built with luxury real estate, is just an extreme variant of this method.
In many cases, the ecological consequences of sand mining on land, rivers, lakes and oceans are fatal. Bethe impressively described how fishermen in China, hoteliers in Jamaica, and farmers in the Midwestern United States saw their livelihoods dwindling. In India, mafia-like groups that illegally mine placer mines do not avoid murder.
Desert sand used to make concrete?
In the attempts and tests of American non-fiction writers, but also a bit old, Beiser uses numbers and comparisons to make the dimension of the problem tangible to the layman. But when you know that the amount of construction sand consumed in China in 2016 (7.8 billion tons) can cover two centimeters of thickness in New York State, what will you get? According to calculations by an American researcher, are the 75 million sand grains that make up the world’s beaches more or less? It is also a bit regretful that Beiser completed his book research in 2017. Therefore, even at the time of publication, the German version has some antiquities, especially when it has reportage characteristics.
But this is always sufficient for the first attractive direction in the subject. And the unpleasant realization that human life is far beyond its capabilities, and the same is true for raw material sand. Beiser tried to show how to control overdevelopment. Possible alternatives are being tested all over the world. There are also attempts to produce concrete from inexhaustible desert sand.
One can only hope that the researchers will succeed. Concrete is a material that ages quickly and is difficult to recycle. If you optimistically assume that the service life of a concrete structure is 200 years, then a few generations will have basic problems. In any case, there are not enough resources to rebuild our city.
Vince Besser: “Sand”. How precious resources slip away from our fingertips. Translated from English by Bernhard Jendricke, Christa Prummer-Lehmair, Gerlinde Schermer-Rauwolf. Oekom-Verlag, Munich 2021. 320 pages, hardcover, 26 euros.
