Unlike the truly amazing “Glass Beach, California,” manufactured recycled glass, once processed, does look and feel like natural sand. Photo courtesy of: Denis Delestrac -(©-2013) “Sand Wars” Multi Award-Winning Filmmaker.
Excerpts;
It was not long ago that beer and wine bottles at the 97-room Ranch at Laguna Beach left the property in the same shape in which they came—only empty and bound for an off-site recycling center. Today those same types of bottles stay at the property but are pulverized by a GL Sand Machine that turns the glass into sand that can be used to replenish the sand in bunkers on the resort’s golf course or the sand at the nearby beach.
According to General Manager Kurt Bjorkman, the resort is the first property in the continental United States to use a GL Sand Machine…
Read Full Article, Green Lodging News (11-30-2017)
How a Brewer is helping save NZ beaches by recycling used beer bottles back into sand; New Zealand Herald (02-21-2017)
New Zealand beer brand DB Export is recycling its used bottles to make a man-made sand – an effort the company hopes will help preserve our beaches. The company hopes the programme will help cut down the amount of sand dredged from beaches. The average Kiwi consumer uses more than 200kg of sand each year, most of which comes from beaches. It’s a non-renewable resource and is also used to make glass…
The Economist explains: Why there is a shortage of sand; The Economist (04-24-2017)
It may be plentiful, but so is the demand for it…
The world is running out of sand; The New Yorker (05-29-2017)
Sand, Rarer Than One Thinks: A UNEP report (GEA-March 2014)
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.
In March 2014 The United Nations released its first Report about sand mining. “Sand Wars” film documentary by Denis Delestrac – first broadcasted on the european Arte Channel, May 28th, 2013, where it became the highest rated documentary for 2013 – expressly inspired the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to publish this 2014-Global Environmental Alert.
The Conservation Crisis No One Is Talking About, TakePart (09-21-2016)
Beaches around the world are disappearing. No, the cause isn’t sea-level rise, at least not this time. It’s a little-known but enormous industry called sand mining, which every year sucks up billions of tons of sand from beaches, ocean floors, and rivers to make everything from concrete to microchips to toothpaste…
Sand Is in Such High Demand, People Are Stealing Tons of It, By Dave Roos; HowStuffWorks (03-06-2017)
As strange as it may sound, sand is one of the world’s hottest commodities. The global construction boom has created an insatiable appetite for sand, the chief ingredient for making concrete. The problem is that sand isn’t as abundant as it used to be. And when high demand and high value meets scarcity, you open the doors to smuggling…
Sand Wars, An Investigation Documentary, By Award-Winning Filmmaker Denis Delestrac (©-2013)
Is sand an infinite resource? Can the existing supply satisfy a gigantic demand fueled by construction booms? What are the consequences of intensive beach sand mining for the environment and the neighboring populations…? This investigative documentary takes us around the globe to unveil a new gold rush and a disturbing fact: the “Sand Wars” have begun…
