Is it true that the world is running out of sand to produce concrete, and if so, why is that?
In: 92
It kinda is but not quite really so. The best sand for concrete production is riverbed sand, or sand which has recently been on riverbed (like beach sand). There obviously is a limited number of riverbeds and beaches on Earth, and also people need rivers and beaches which haven’t been basically destroyed by sand mining. Another thing is that sand is heavy and therefore rather expensive to transport around in the massive quantities required. So overall we are running out of good concrete-making sand that is close to where it’s needed and that can be mined without massive environmental damage. So it’s not really like we are actually going to run out of sand anytime soon, but it will likely become significantly more expensive with time.
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