Beware, earth is running out of sand fast

It may sound weird, but the world is running out of sand and we don’t have much left. Everyone is aware that our planet is at a risk of losing water, but who knew that we have another thing that is becoming rare every year.

According to Business Insider report, the sand extraction industry is a $70 billion industry and there is a black market for it as well. The demand for sand is increasing, as the world continues to build cities. After all, sand is one of the major components for concrete, making up 75 percent of it.

The world produces over four billion tons of concrete in a year and the production is rising thanks to an explosion of new cities, especially in the developing world. The use of sand doesn’t just stop here, as it is used to make various other basic things such as computer chips, cosmetics and is even found in our food as well.

The sand we are talking about here is marine sand. It’s the sand that you find at the bottom of rivers, oceans and on beaches. Unfortunately, we can't use sand from the desert as wind erosion makes the grains too round for most purposes.

The world uses 50 billion tons of sand every year, which is twice the amount produced by every river in the world, reported Business Insider. So much of it is being used that by 2100, 67 percent of the Southern California beaches will be eroded.

There are many environmental consequences too, such as in the case of Dubai when it depleted its sea floor as it build the Palm Islands and The World. On the other hand, if we run out of sand, there will also be huge economic repercussions, as one will see rise in home prices since houses are made up using huge amount of sand.