Peril on the beach: is your sandcastle ethical?

Le Regard Libre N° 51 - Clément Guntern

A recent UN report expresses concern about the use of sand on the planet. If you think that sand is only used to create postcard decorations and sand castles, think again. At the heart of many problems, sand in all its forms is in peril.

Is sand a problem? Yes, some people will say—for them, even a few grains of sand on the arch of their foot are enough to cause itching and discomfort. Others will counter that they’ve never seen a more beautiful landscape than a beach of fine sand on an island in the middle of the ocean. Opinions seem divided at this point. As is often the case, it’s the experts who will have the final say: as the second most exploited resource after water, sand seems inexhaustible, covering entire deserts and lining coastlines. However, its extraction is becoming increasingly problematic and threatens to cause serious harm to communities and their environment.

The idea of an inexhaustible supply of sand isn’t entirely wrong. Global reserves are estimated at 120,000,000,000,000,000 metric tons—120 million billion, for those in the know. As for grains of sand, there are an estimated ten trillion of them on all the beaches of the planet—still fewer than the stars in the universe. This famous sand is obviously found in deserts, on shorelines, at the bottom of the oceans, but also in the beds of rivers and streams. Grains must measure between 2 and 0.065 millimeters to be considered sand; anything larger is gravel, and anything smaller is silt.

Sand for Everything

As some of you already know, sand is one of the basic ingredients of concrete. As a result, sand is a key raw material in the construction industry: homes, roads, buildings of all kinds, bridges, tunnels, and so on. In addition to construction, sand can be mined for other minerals it contains, such as gold, diamonds, or tin, as well as for use in manufacturing glass or electronic components. It is also the basis for hydraulic fracturing, the controversial method of extracting oil by fracturing certain underground rocks.

Une multitude d’usages, mais des réserves presque sans fin: où se situe le problème? Les grains de sable ne sont malheureusement pas égaux entre eux et ils ne peuvent pas tous être utilisés. Le sable des déserts, charrié par le vent, est trop fin, d’autres sont inaccessibles car sous la mer ou sous d’autres sédiments. C’est donc une forte proportion des réserves mondiales qui est soit inexploitable, soit inaccessible, alors que l’utilisation annuelle de sable se monte à plus de 40 milliards de tonnes. Pour exemple, la construction d’une maison moyenne requiert environ deux tonnes de sable et un kilomètre d’autoroute plus de trente mille. Aussi, le processus de poldérisation qui consiste à gagner du terrain sur la mer en entassant des matériaux dans l’eau est un très grand consommateur de sable. Des pays comme Singapour ou les Pays-Bas en sont de grands consommateurs.

Sand Everywhere

The types of uses—hydraulic fracturing, land reclamation, construction—correspond to the leading importing countries: Canada is fracking left and right, Singapore wants to reclaim even more land from the sea, and China has produced more concrete in the last twenty years than the United States did throughout the entire last century. That says a lot. On the export side, there are many different countries, ranging from the United States to Australia, including Belgium, Germany, France, and Malaysia. In general, sand trade between these countries tends to be fairly localized and occurs between neighboring nations due to the weight of the cargo. It is, therefore, a global market of paramount importance to the functioning of the modern world. This is a far cry from the sandbox on the playground…

Even the UN recently expressed alarm in a report on the state of sand mining worldwide, as extraction far exceeds the resource’s rate of renewal and consumption has increased twentyfold over the past twenty years. Since the general public is largely unaware of the importance of sand, the consequences of its overexploitation are surprising in their scale and scope.

It isn’t always evil multinational corporations that extract beach sand. Sometimes, local residents collect it from beaches and then from the seabed, damaging marine flora and fauna, which in turn harms both tourism and traditional fishing. As land-based quarries are depleted, the increase in hydroelectric dams prevents the replenishment of river sand—which remains the best option in many respects. At the other end of the spectrum, global urbanization is driving up the demand for raw materials for construction, contributing to increased pressure on existing sand reserves. 

Naughty Games in the Sandbox

But the implications do not end there. To support Singapore’s land reclamation efforts, Indonesia has long been extracting sand from small islands off its coast. In addition to destroying a natural barrier against coastal erosion and causing soil salinization that renders the land unsuitable for agriculture, this exploitation risks having implications for international borders. Indeed, if an island disappears, the exclusive economic zone within which a state can exploit ocean resources—fish, oil, gas, etc.—is reduced.

Fortunately, Indonesia, along with several other Southeast Asian countries, has decided to halt its shipments to Singapore to protect its coastlines. Yet the city-state continues to illegally import sand to carry out its projects. This is yet another consequence of sand mining in several countries. In India, veritable “sand mafias” have emerged. Powerful and ruthless, they do not hesitate to kill or threaten those who oppose them. The lack of international regulations fuels this illegal activity.

Let's Save Our Beaches

The UN believes that these issues are largely overlooked by the international community, even though they constitute a global problem affecting every continent. The eastern coast of the United States, for example, has become more vulnerable to hurricanes due to a lack of sand to protect it. In Brittany, a project to mine an underwater dune threatened to disrupt an entire local ecosystem. According to the UN, a lack of regulation and excessively low prices are the main causes of these problems. Furthermore, the failure to recognize sand as a public issue—due to the misconception that its supply is supposedly unlimited—makes sand an even more critical concern.

But since we always have to end with solutions, let’s consider those from the UN report. Recycling can make a difference, raise prices, and lead to stronger legislation and active civic engagement. All in all, some great ideas. When you’re on vacation this summer and perhaps see children building a sandcastle, ask them if the sand they’re using comes from an ethically sourced source. That will give them something to think about.

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