Sand miners, Mumbai.
“Sand is the second most consumed natural resource, after water. The construction-building industry is by far the largest consumer of this finite resource. The traditional building of one average-sized house requires 200 tons of sand; a hospital requires 3,000 tons of sand; each kilometer of highway built requires 30,000 tons of sand… A nuclear plant, a staggering 12 million tons of sand…” Captions and Photograph by © Denis Delestrac
Excerpts;
Concerned over large scale illegal sand mining across states, the Union mines ministry has convened meeting of all States and Union Territories next week to discuss the legal and administrative frameworks in place in each state to govern sand mining and the actual experience of states in handling such cases.
In a 2011 judgment on mining in Haryana the Supreme Court said that the increasing demand for sand due from building and construction sectors was placing immense pressure on the supply of the resource, which has led to mining activity — both legal and illegal…
Read Full Article, India Express
Sand, Rarer Than One Thinks: A UNEP report
Sand and gravel are mined world-wide and account for the largest volume of solid material extracted globally. Formed by erosive processes over thousands of years (John, 2009), they are now being extracted at a rate far greater than their renewal. Furthermore, the volume being extracted is having a major impact on rivers, deltas and coastal and marine ecosystems (Figure 1), results in loss of land through river or coastal erosion, lowering of the water table and decreases in the amount of sediment supply. Despite the colossal quantities of sand and gravel being used, our increasing dependence on them and the significant impact that their extraction has on the environment, this issue has been mostly ignored by policy makers and remains largely unknown by the general public.
Let’s Talk About Sand: Denis Delestrac At TEDxBarcelona
Denis Delestrac latest feature documentary, “Sand Wars” is an epic eco-thriller that takes the audience around the globe to unveil a new gold rush and a disturbing fact: we are running out of sand! In this TEDxBarcelona talk, he explains us where sand comes from and where it ends up…
Sand Thieves Are Eroding World’s Beaches For Castles Of Cash, by Martine Valo, Le Monde
The pillaging of sand is a growing practice in the world. This is because it represents 80% of the composition of concrete that it is the object of such greed…
