We’re running out of sand!
The quantities are gigantic: mankind currently consumes 40 to 50 billion tons of sand per year. This is the result of a study carried out by the UN Environmental Programme UNEP in 2019, making sand one of the most important trading raw materials of all and the second largest traded and mined resource of our time after water.
Prof. Dirk E. Hebel in: Sakowitz, Sven (2020). Uns geht der Sand aus, HÖRZU Wissen.