Conserve sand, keep glass in use

THE world is running out of sand, we use sand at an alarming rate; the world uses 50 billion tons of sand every year. We use up sand far faster than Earth’s capacity to produce it.

We use enough sand to construct a wall 27 metres high by 27 metres wide around the equator.

It erodes riverbanks, destroys beaches, and the ocean,

In China sand extractions have caused a terrible decline in the water levels of Poyang Lake, the country’s largest freshwater lake.

How surprising to learn that something like sand is causing the rise of illegal mining of the mineral.

The main material to make glass is sand, to make clear glass a special sand called silica sand is used, this white sand is needed because of its purity, and no other unwanted chemicals, glass production needs limestone, soda ash, and chemicals to colour the glass.

Glass recycling is becoming less profitable, with negative profit, with some saying broken glass is very difficult to recycle. Glass can be recycled over and over again, but what with the everincreasing demand on our ever-depleting sand resources, it is absolutely vital that governments introduce a deposit scheme on glass bottles, as glass bottles can be reused. I don’t know what happens to beer bottles that are whole. I know I see an awful lot of smashed glass around the place.

The government is atrociously slow to introduce a deposit scheme on glass bottles. What with the depletion of sand in the oceans and the appalling plastic waste pollutions, it is becoming increasingly obvious that all the countries of the world stop the pollution, or we won’t have a world left.

Richard Shurey Tonypandy