
The world is running out of sand and there’s a violent black market (2018) - vezycash
https://globalnews.ca/news/4274233/world-running-out-of-sand-black-market/
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ivanhoe
In Serbia local mafia is controlling river sand excavations ever since
mid-90s, and the most of these sites work completely illegally all this time.
Beside the obvious problem of exploiting natural resources, causing erosion of
river banks, and destroying the river ecosystem, this also has a much wider
negative influence on the society as it's creating a huge chain of corruption
of government officials and police. And this is a serious business with a lot
of money in the game, to the point that all drug lords there are also in the
sand business.

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ChuckNorris89
Same in Romania, the local mafia is controlling all the legal and illegal tree
cutting with _help_ from the politicians and forest rangers since exporting it
to Western countries is lucrative enough to grease the whole chain.

The taxpayers then have to deal with the aftermath of deforestation.

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OedipusRex
99% Invisible did an episode on Sand and it's black market:
[https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/built-on-
sand/](https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/built-on-sand/)

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pier25
I recommend the documentary Sand Wars from 2013. Here's the trailer:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAPfwwb59uY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAPfwwb59uY)

I believe it's available on Prime.

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Jun8
This is interesting, I didn’t know that desert countries were actually
importing sand for construction! Here’s a relatively recent paper looking at
the suitability of desert sand to replace the fine aggregate in cement:
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09500...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0950061806001917),
concludes that it can be used in small percentages.

Idea: It would be useful to have global competitions with hefty prizes, e.g >
$1M, for process inventions that address scarcity problems like this to spur
independent young researchers.

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jihadjihad
One thing I found interesting when visiting the Bahamas is that every few
years some entrepreneurial locals pitch the idea of using the sand from the
beaches to turn it into glass. Only problem with that: the "sand" is made up
of crushed coral and seashells (probably some limestone in there, too), so
it's not possible to furnish glass from it.

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ryanmercer
Planet Money had a good episode on this about a year ago.

Audio ->
[https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/07/13/628894815/epis...](https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/07/13/628894815/episode-853-peak-
sand)

Transcript ->
[https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?stor...](https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=628890875)

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notpeter
This should have a (2018) on it.

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logfromblammo
I envision a machine that takes in desert dune sand, arranges four individual
grains into a tetrad, and uses concentrated solar light to melt some sand into
glass, to bind the tetrads together. Then it ejects the tiny glass-bound
pyramid into a collection bin and repeats.

Like a Spacechem/Opus Magnum puzzle that has a dune sand input and a
construction sand output.

~~~
i_am_nomad
Creative thinking, I like it. Pyramidal sand might be even grippier than the
standard, cubic version.

Alternatively, I wonder if just splitting spherical sand in half would work?

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saalweachter
Particle size also matters. Even if your split sand didn't cross the threshold
from "sand" to "silt", the coarser sand is still better for construction,
IIRC.

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dybber
Large reserves of sand is getting accessible in Greenland:
[https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/07/01/climate/green...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/07/01/climate/greenland-
glacier-melting-sand.html)

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RenRav
Can we modify desert sand particles into more irregular shapes with heat or
something?

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terminalhealth
Are there good alternative building materials? Perhaps wood?

Edit: It seems I am shadow banned. I am going to take this as a deep insult.

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xwdv
No, it’s worse. You are not shadow banned, people just don’t care about what
you have to say.

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okcando
Harsh.

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xwdv
I agree, this is a harsh place.

