The demand for that material is so intense that around the world, riverbeds and beaches are being stripped bare, and farmlands and forests torn up to get at the precious grains. The sand we need is the more angular stuff found in the beds, banks, and floodplains of rivers, as well as in lakes and on the seashore. How can we possibly be running low on a substance found in virtually every country on earth and that seems essentially limitless? We can even buy bags of it at our local hardware shop for a fistful of small change.īut believe it or not, the world is facing a shortage of sand. Beaches on coastlines around the world are lined with sand. Huge deserts from the Sahara to Arizona have billowing dunes of the stuff. And even the silicon chips inside our phones and computers – along with virtually every other piece of electronic equipment in your home – are made from sand.Īnd where is the problem with that, you might ask? Our planet is covered in it. The glass in every window, windshield, and smart phone screen is made of melted-down sand. The concrete used to construct shopping malls, offices, and apartment blocks, along with the asphalt we use to build roads connecting them, are largely just sand and gravel glued together.
It is the primary raw material that modern cities are made from. Trivial though it may seem, sand is a critical ingredient of our lives. They are some of the latest casualties in a growing wave of violence sparked by the struggle for one of the 21st Century’s most important, but least appreciated, commodities: ordinary sand. Though separated by thousands of miles, these killings share an unlikely cause. A Mexican environmental activist murdered in June. Two Indian villagers killed in a gun battle in August. A South African entrepreneur shot dead in September.
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