Positive Future #471 (Feature photo – Mining Sand – By User:Vmenkov – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=58149721)
Inhabitat journalist Lucienne Cross raises our awareness of what mining can do. Little known is that 85 percent of all material mined from Earth is sand – mostly used to make concrete. One study found that every ton of sand taken from a river in California costs taxpayers $3 in infrastructure damage. Unfortunately the story is the same as with other environmental issues such as over-farming, over-fishing and over-foresting.
While consumption and population are still growing, interesting to note is that women around the globe are choosing to have fewer children – women today are having only half the number of children than they did 60 years ago.
The good news is that this story of sand raises our awareness. You can read the full story here:
https://inhabitat.com/demand-for-sand-the-largest-mining-industry-no-one-talks-about/
