Podcast: “The sand crisis: overexploitation and recycling”

Sand is the second most exploited natural resource in the world after water, and its use has tripled in recent decades. According to estimates by the United Nations Environment Program, about 50 billion tons of sand and enough gravel are used every year to build a wall 27 meters wide and 27 meters high that goes around the planet.

Sand mining exceeds its replacement rates without any global inventory of its use or control of how it is mined in many regions of the world. What has caused this overexploitation? What impact at the environmental level and on biodiversity and ecosystems does disproportionate extraction have? How can sand be recycled and what initiatives exist to achieve a more rational use of this resource?

In this chapter of “La Hora Verde” podcast, directed by José David Millán, researchers Clara Delgado, Azterlan Environment and Sustainability team (coordinator of the European project “LIFE Eco-Sandfill”, dedicated to the revaluation of used foundry sand) and Aurora Torres, postdoctoral researcher at the Catholic University of Louvain (coordinator of the European project “Sandlinks”) discuss these and other various issues related to the use and recovery of sand.