I'll try to make this quick since we
don't have a lot of time the world is
running out of sand
crazy right we have literal tons of it
on beaches deserts and under the ocean
but we're using it up faster than the
planet can make it we use sand way more
than you'd expect
worldwide we go through fifty billion
tons of sand every year that is twice
the amount produced by every River in
the world after air and water sand is
our most used natural resource we use it
even more than oil we use it to make
food wine toothpaste glass computer
chips breast implants cosmetics paper
paint and plastics so where does it all
come from well let's ask Vince Peyser
he wrote a book on it called the world
in a grain so the sand that we use is
what you call marine san it's the sand
that you find at the bottom of rivers
and on beaches and at the bottom of
lakes and oceans I know what you're
thinking and no we can't use sand from
the desert wind erosion makes the grains
too round for most purposes what we need
is angular sand that locks together like
pieces of a puzzle
you know like sand broken down from
mountain rocks as they're pelted by rain
wind and rivers for twenty five thousand
years or so the major player for sand
usage is concrete okay just to be clear
cement is the lime and clay based glue
that sticks everything together and
concrete is the final result that you
walk on drive on and live inside
concrete is made of ten percent cement
15 percent water and 75 percent sand the
concrete required to build a house takes
on average about 200 tons of sand a
hospital uses about 3000 tons and a mile
of highway requires 15,000 tons it makes
sense that the world makes over 4
billion tons of concrete annually we
need more every year the number and size
of our cities is exploding especially in
the developing world this change is most
noticeable in China now home to the
largest urban area in the world the
Pearl River Delta between 42 and 60
million people now call the delta home
China now has a hundred and two cities
with a population of over a million
Europe has 38 all those growing cities
they need a lot of concrete between 2011
and 2013 China used more concrete than
the US did in the entire 20th century
again in three years China built the
equivalent of every highway road and
bridge in the US and the Hoover Dam so
it's not outrageous to hear that China
outpaces the world in cement production
by a lot 2,500 metric tons every year
all that cement is gonna need a lot of
sand to make concrete most of it comes
from dredging Paul yang lake an
estimated 236 million cubic meters of
sand is taken from it every year making
it the largest single sand mine in the
world but concrete isn't China's only
use force and they're also using tons of
it to build up islands in the South
China Sea expanding its foothold in the
region and China's not the only nation
building islands from nothing you've
seen these before the palm islands and
the world are major Island building
projects in Dubai and required 186 point
5 million meters of sand this depleted
the sea floor around the United Arab
Emirates leaving importing sand from
Australia as the only option while
constructing the world's tallest
building the Burj Khalifa it's no
surprise then that sand extraction is a
seventy billion dollar industry the
easiest and cheapest and best quality
sand actually comes from riverbeds it's
very easy to get you just send a boat
out into the middle of a river with a
big suction pump on it's just basically
like a big straw that you drop down to
the bottom of the river suck all that
sand right up off the bottom problem
solved
nope the ocean floor isn't miles of sand
deep it's a thin layer over rock and
that layer is home to microorganisms
which feed the base of the food chain
collecting all that sand disrupts
fishing in the area and the landscape
onshore when removing sand from the
seabed the shore above the water slides
into the valley to even itself out this
still leaves shore communities open to
flooding and erosion the recent floods
in Houston were actually made worse by
sand mining in the
San Jacinto River on the San Jacinto is
one of the rivers that borders Houston
it's also an excellent source of sand
it's been mined very heavily for sand
for the last ten twenty years up to 90%
of the world's beaches have shrunk an
average of 40 meters since 2008 if you
haven't noticed a change in your
favourite Beach you're not alone popular
Shores replenish their dying beaches
with even more sand imported from
elsewhere usually at taxpayers expense
and if we keep it up almost 70% of
Southern California's spectacular
beaches could be completely eroded by
2100 governments worldwide have begun to
regulate and restrict sand mining &
concrete production so now problem
solved right actually it's caused an
entirely new problem the black market of
sand over 100 billion tons have been
stolen over the past few decades illegal
sand mining has led to the rise of the
sand mafia India's strongest criminal
organization this interconnected group
of businessmen drivers and criminals use
intimidation and if that fails violence
and murder to keep the sand flowing
illegal sand generates 2.3 billion
dollars a year employing 75,000 of
India's impoverished to dive for sand
and rivers divers work 12-hour days
diving up to 200 times and only making
$15 a boatload many suffer from bleeding
ears and headaches drownings go
unreported worldwide illegal sand mining
has destroyed entire islands two dozen
Indonesian islands have disappeared
around the same time Singapore imported
17 million tonnes for its massive
50-mile land expansion
it wasn't until 2010 that dozens of
Malaysian officials were charged with
accepting bribes and sexual favors for
importing the illegal sand the first
thing that we're gonna see in this
country this sort of canary in the
coalmine
that will really let us know that things
are starting to get that is prices I
believe that this is one of the reasons
that housing costs have gone up so much
in pretty much all of America's big
cities because the price of sand has
about quintupled in the last 30 40 years
and that's one of the critical inputs of
course whenever you're building a house
is say
for the concrete we do have some
alternatives while crushing rocks and
recycled concrete is expensive it can be
used to create concrete quality sand
glass bottles can be ground up to make
recycled glass sand to replenish beaches
yes it's totally safe and no it's not
going to cut you finally UN
environmental program suggest better
pricing and taxing on sand mining in
order to encourage these alternatives
they also recommend an immediate need
for creating regulations in all
countries as well as international
waters the question isn't how can we use
less sand it's how can we use less of
everything trees water fish or overusing
all of those things and sand is just one
thing that we should be adding to the
list or we're on track to be a planet of
at least 9 billion people in the next 20
years most of them are gonna want to
consume resources the way that we do in
the Western world and that is just
physically impossible the best move you
can do is just to use less the less we
need to make the less resources we use
so if we all want to keep enjoying these
things while still enjoying this thing
we need to protect this thing before I
run out of time
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