Costa Ricans are well-acquainted with sand. In fact, white beaches across the nation have gone viral worldwide for their outstanding natural beauty. Not all beachlines are made equal, however, and a lot of sand is harvested for technological reasons too. While sand may be plentiful, this underappreciated resource may be heading for a shortage.
Source: Unsplash
Advanced Uses Of Sand
On the face of it, a shortage sounds unlikely considering sandy coastlines are found all over the world. However, sand is the most-used raw material besides water, and it has a number of applications that many people don’t consider. It has a massive role in construction, landscaping and of course, glassmaking. That last one makes sand a crucial tech resource, since screens and even microchips are made with sand.
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As the world becomes more digital and entertainment moves online, more sand will be required in the future to create hardware. That hardware forms the foundation of many online industries that focus on work and leisure, including video-on-demand and iGaming. When users watch TV or play slot games online at Paddy Power, sand is one of the core ingredients that enable these digital experiences.
What Makes Sand Useful
The sand in coastlines and deserts across the world differ widely, depending on the unique geology and environmental factors that created the sand in the first place. Just like how less than 3% of water is drinkable, explained here by How Stuff Works, a lot of sand is unworkable because it lacks critical ingredients.
Every handful of sand is a cocktail of mineral particles, such as quartz and calcium compounds. Tiny, worn-down particles of sea life like coral and shell fragments also act as a sand ingredient in coastal areas, including Costa Rica. In fact, tropical sands get their distinct white hue due to the historical dominance of coral reefs. Parrotfish live near active reefs, feeding off algae from them, and they ingest pieces of coral. That coral is bleached when it passes through the fish, eventually washing up on nearby land masses. There are notable exceptions to this, where non-tropical or land-based sand deposits can have white coloring due to higher quartz or gypsum content.
For basic industrial use like making concrete, the method of erosion is very important. While plentiful, a lot of desert sand has been worn down by the wind. Wind is a more effective erosion method, meaning every stand particle has unparalleled smoothness. That causes issues when trying to bond sand molecules together into a useable material. Water-eroded sand from coastlines and even riverbeds is more jagged, allowing for stable concrete.
For glass, which forms the basis of technologically viable sand, silica is the star of the show. While silica (via quartz) is present in most sands, the best glass sands have up to 95% silica composition. River sands have too many impurities for this, and even a lot of beaches don’t achieve this level of purity. Waste from mining in rock heavy with quartz or sandstone can create high-silica sand deposits, this is seen with gold mining where non-silica impurities are filtered away to get to the gold.
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Avoiding A Sand Shortage
With the above context, a sand shortage makes more sense. Like many predictions, it’s no certainty that one will occur, especially as construction and tech advancements may change our relationship with core sand deposits. It can take up to 80 million years for sand to naturally form, so we aren’t getting a replacement for the sand already used.
However, like removing salt from water to make it drinkable, it’s possible to artificially create sand replacement by crushing rock ourselves. Unfortunately, also like desalination, making it cost-effective is a different issue. Other companies are trying to make desert sand useable, described here by Fast Company, as that would take a lot of pressure off the industry. This gives the industry hope that we can sidestep any shortage concerns by making it ourselves, a strategy already being deployed in other industries.
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Carter Maddox
