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Topic: Our Beaches Are Disappearing, Partly Because of the Black Market (Read 131 times)

sr. member
Activity: 1036
Merit: 279
A shocking discovery I learned from a Business Insider article: The world is running out of sand and by 2100, 67% of Southern California will be gone. Sand actually, is the most used natural resource in the world. It is used in cosmetics, paint, plastics, glass, computer chips, even food and wine. Another huge consumer of sand is concrete. And since cities are expanding, there are about 4 billions tons of concrete being used each year. Governments may have begun restricting sand mining, but this only caused the rise of
The Black Market of Sand Illegal and the Sand Mafia, India's strongest criminal organization --illegal sand
apparently generates $2.3 billion a year.

Are people just about to sacrifice anything for money? Are risking lives and endangering the environment worth it? Would you consider yourself successful and accomplished if you've made a huge profit in a very questionable way? What are you willing to do to achieve success and feel fulfilled?

http://www.businessinsider.com/world-running-out-sand-resources-concrete-2018-6?utm_source=reddit.com

Seems we were watching the same vids. Yeah heard of the sand mafia too, at first I found it hard to believe. Thing is, it's hard to find alternatives. I'm assuming demand would even further increase as even more 3rd world countries develop. Some places they quarry rocks and crush those and use those in place of sand but that creates a problem of its own.
hero member
Activity: 1764
Merit: 584
It's really mostly construction that eat up a lot of sand. The bigger problem is that desert sand won't do - they're too round to be used as aggregates. And so people dredge beaches and river and lake beds, which cause destruction as the shore line further recede inland.

People can probably switch to wood and bamboo for housing but skyscrapers need concrete.
jr. member
Activity: 196
Merit: 1
A shocking discovery I learned from a Business Insider article: The world is running out of sand and by 2100, 67% of Southern California will be gone. Sand actually, is the most used natural resource in the world. It is used in cosmetics, paint, plastics, glass, computer chips, even food and wine. Another huge consumer of sand is concrete. And since cities are expanding, there are about 4 billions tons of concrete being used each year. Governments may have begun restricting sand mining, but this only caused the rise of
The Black Market of Sand Illegal and the Sand Mafia, India's strongest criminal organization --illegal sand
apparently generates $2.3 billion a year.

Are people just about to sacrifice anything for money? Are risking lives and endangering the environment worth it? Would you consider yourself successful and accomplished if you've made a huge profit in a very questionable way? What are you willing to do to achieve success and feel fulfilled?

http://www.businessinsider.com/world-running-out-sand-resources-concrete-2018-6?utm_source=reddit.com
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