The world is running out of sand, the strangest shortage on Earth, because only certain grains can build a city, and a violent black market now fights over what’s left.

By Kiran Journals

Sand and gravel are the second most used resources on Earth after water. The United Nations Environment Programme estimates global use at about 50 billion tonnes a year and says extraction is outpacing sustainable supply. Sand is central to concrete, asphalt and glass, while high-purity silica is a feedstock for silicon used in electronics and photovoltaic cells.

Demand for suitable sand and aggregates is high enough that poorly governed extraction has become a significant driver of environmental degradation, cross-border smuggling and organised violence. Reliable global data on illegal extraction are limited, so the size of that black market cannot be stated confidently.

The sand that can build a city

The counterintuitive core of the shortage is that not all sand is functionally equivalent. Windblown dune sand is often too fine and rounded to meet conventional concrete specifications without processing, blending or a specially engineered mix. Suitability depends on grading, grain shape, mineral composition and the intended use; desert sand is not categorically useless. Construction aggregate can come from river, lake, coastal and marine deposits, or from rock crushed to a suitable grading.

The practical consequence is that proximity to a desert does not guarantee a local supply meeting every construction specification. Singapore, which has expanded its territory through land reclamation since the 1960s, has imported large quantities of sand from neighbouring countries, several of which later restricted exports amid environmental concerns.

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