19 ms·
Sand Theft
- pg_is_a_butt 7y agoSomehow Wisconsin politicians thought it would be a good idea to legalize and privatize this entire ecologically devastating process, allowing vast amounts of Wisconsin sand to be sold to out of state fracking companies.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- jonah-archive 7y agoSee in particular this fascinating recent article regarding GPS jamming and sand theft in the port of Shanghai: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/614689/ghost-ships-crop-circles-and-soft-gold-a-gps-mystery-in-shanghai/ https://www.technologyreview.com/s/614689/ghost-ships-crop-c...
- duelingjello 7y agoEDIT: I read some other, more complete sources, it looks like jamming. Disclaimer: I worked at Trimble Nav Ltd. in the radio group. In general, GPS errors could also be caused by: - PRC MIL jamming non-military non-BeiDou positioning systems to prevent drone or cruise missile attacks - US MIL increasing Selective Availability (SA) on or disabling the unencrypted signal for a region - Physical obstructions: trees, buildings, etc. You'd think huge ships would have laser ring gyro INS and GLONASS/Galileo/BeiDou as a backup? Depending on a locally-jammable, unencrypted data monoculture (GPS) for multiple critical systems is a SPOF and insane.
- khuey 7y agoSelective Availability is on its way out. In addition to being disabled for 20 years, supposedly the new 3rd generation GPS satellites were built without the capability.
- XorNot 7y agoAlso most of the US GPS guided ordnance cannot function when selective availability is enabled. The reality is that cheap GPS chips enable so much more capability then the risk of your enemy benefiting from a mapping system.
- Animats 7y agoJDAMs apparently have had an inertial system for backup for some time. MEMS gyros are good enough to guide from release to target. DARPA has quietly been working on compact, low-cost guidance without GPS for a while.[1] Doesn't seem to have filtered down to the commercial market yet, and that's probably not an accident. [1] https://www.darpa.mil/program/micro-technology-for-positioning-navigation-and-timing/inertial-sensors https://www.darpa.mil/program/micro-technology-for-positioni...
- nradov 7y agoConsidering that BeiDou uses the same frequency range as Galileo, is it really feasible for the military to jam one without the other?
- leppr 7y ago> EDIT: I read some other, more complete sources, it looks like jamming. Care to share those? It's an interesting topic but I don't have the base knowledge to make out bogus/incomplete information.
- darkengine 7y agoWhat I found most interesting about this article is Singapore's practice of buying an incredible amount of sand and using it to make more Singapore. I made sure to read the cited source because this claim sounded way too similar to some past Wikipedia edit pranks.
- gkolli 7y agoUnless I'm missing something here, doesn't that make sense (in the sense of the theft)? That the country would buy the sand to expand its territory?
- lainga 7y agoSand Property is Sand Theft. Also, in the case of Singapore, not all of it was used to make Singapore larger, some was used to resurface Marina Bay (formerly muddy) with nice clean sand, so it could act as a strategic freshwater reserve
- schoen 7y agoI've never understood how they got the existing salt out of the water in the bay there after they completed the dam. Is that clear to you?
- lainga 7y agoIt's fed by freshwater rivers, providing pressure pushing the water in the bay out to sea; and they open the barrage at low tide so that water flows out (thus why it's a barrage and not a fixed dam). And then close it again at high tide, so saltwater doesn't flow back in.
- kenneth 7y agoIt happens naturally. Add freshwater into a bowl full of brine, let it spill over continuously and pretty soon you've got almost only freshwater left.
- duelingjello 7y agoThe 'sand mafia' fuelling India's $120 billion building boom (2017) https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-28/the-great-sand-heist-fuelling-india-120-billion-building/8390984 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-28/the-great-sand-heist-... India's Sand Mafia: The Dark Secrets of India's Construction Industry (2017, video) by Journeyman Pictures, and recommended by ABC Australia https://youtu.be/ugT-zyXGNIY https://youtu.be/ugT-zyXGNIY
- aaron695 7y agoWiki either mistakenly changed the title from "Beach Theft" to "Sand theft" or doesn't understand the issue. Sand theft is common. It's normally stolen by illegally dredging rivers. Singapore 'stealing' sand from Asian countries has been systematically going on for years. It's the same as theft of wood. Everywhere where there are corrupt government officials, it's organised crime, sometimes people die over it, and it's easy to go watch while having a beer. Beach theft, which the wiki currently predominantly talks about is different.
- osipov 7y agoJust wait until someone figures out that rising sea levels in the countries near Singapore were due to faulty measurements caused by sand theft.
- anonu 7y agoThis is fascinating science. Can you explain more?
- cookie_monsta 7y agoFrom what I understand it is a side effect of people trying to add curvature to the Earth's flat surface.
- mkoryak 7y agoI am not surprised. I built a 6x6x2 foot sandbox for my son and was pleasantly surprised that it would cost me around $720 to fill it with play sand from home depot. Maybe there is a way to get 'play sand' in bulk that I am not aware of. Most bulk sand you can buy is construction sand and isn't actually sand but ground up rocks and is very bad for playing with.
- werdnapk 7y agoI just built a 5x5 box for my kids and was also surprised by the cost of the play sand. Did a little shopping around though and I think I spent $200 CDN to fill the box. Most places I think were selling for $10-13/bag, but I ended up finding $5/bag play sand.
- XorNot 7y agoBuying by the bag is the problem right there. All these things get so much cheaper if you can transport 1 tonne bulka-bags. 20/40kg bags of anything all cost about the same because the bagging is the cost. The trouble unless you're tooled up for it, 1 tonne bags are near impossible to move, and double in price to have delivered, where they are still impossible for you to move except incrementally. Interestingly the 1.5 tonne tray capacity on the Cybertruck would be appealing for exactly that reason - you'd actually have a vehicle which can actually carry that (ute I borrowed from my inlaws caps out at 750kgs).
- vidarh 7y agoCase in point: In the UK I can buy 20kg bags of sand from Amazon for ~10-20GBP, or a 1000kg for ~50 GBP. Both including delivery. I still ended up buying a bunch of 20kg bags last summer, exactly for the reasons you point out - 1 ton was too much and impossible for me to move other than by bagging it up myself...
- 2rsf 7y agotry leaching on another delivery... find a small construction site near you and nicely ask to pay for a partial delivery. Some hardware stores might even suggest that
- valgaze 7y agoNot “theft” but interesting sand activities: https://www.hawaiimagazine.com/blogs/hawaii_today/2009/2/20/Waikiki_beach_sand https://www.hawaiimagazine.com/blogs/hawaii_today/2009/2/20/... “Erosion and rising sea levels have swallowed a foot of Waikiki Beach annually since 1985. This phenomenon, while accelerated in the last few decades, is nothing new. Reports from the 1920s and 1930s reveal that sand was brought in from Manhattan Beach, California, via ship and barge, to Waikiki Beach. Importation of sand into Hawaii ceased in the 1970s.”
- wefarrell 7y agoPlanet money had an episode about this: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/07/13/628894815/episode-853-peak-sand https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/07/13/628894815/epis...
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- scrollaway 7y agoAh, a fellow Half as Interesting viewer :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BApuzIPVTi8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BApuzIPVTi8 This is a channel run by the same guy from Wendover Productions, highly recommend subscribing. Especially if you're into obscure things such as sand theft, or … really, anything aviation related.
- Mengkudulangsat 7y agoI wonder if there are any research towards adapting desert sand for use in concrete? It would solve this "problem" in a jiffy.
- bo0tzz 7y agoWith the size of the construction industry and the matching need for sand, I can't imagine this being an avenue left unexplored.
- ChoGGi 7y agoDesert sand is rounded, river sand is spiky.
- TheSoftwareGuy 7y agoI've wondered if we could melt the desert sand into glass and use machines to get it back down to the right coarseness. It's one of the ways I think widely available & cheap renewable energy would help solve most of the worlds resource shortages
- rahuldottech 7y agoI like that channel, but it really bothers me how they never list any sources in their description. That should be mandatory for all educational channels, IMO.
- scrollaway 7y agoHAI doesn't, but his "more serious" educational channel Wendover Productions does (numbers in corners referenced in the description).
- Cherian 7y agoMy home state Kerala in India is subject to rampant sand mining. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b20dlI0_ZtU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b20dlI0_ZtU Ironically, we fuel this via demand for coarse sand in construction. The impact is immediate. Rivers are drying up and water beds are going deeper down: https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Thiruvananthapuram/sandmining-sound-the-death-knell-for-the-bharathapuzha/article3462733.ece https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Thiruvananthapuram/sand...
- spectramax 7y agoThis is infuriating. The video shows just how casual this whole enterprise is. It would be a piece of cake to enforce laws and shut this down elsewhere, the only way this makes sense is that there is deep rooted corruption?
- vsskanth 7y agoYeah in India local politicians and higher level members of the state government profit from this
- rohan_shah 7y agoThe bjp government along with police is trying to use Satellite surveillance to stop sand mining. But it's only partially working...
- msravi 7y agoAbout 10-12 years ago, almost every construction I came across in Bangalore used to use river sand. Today, most construction sites I see use M-sand or manufactured sand. River sand is at least 4x the cost of M-sand and that has automatically driven people to shift to using M-sand. River sand mining bans have also increased the cost to sand miners, who in turn pass it on to their clients down the chain, so it's helping...
- anonu 7y agoWhen I read such poorly written Wikipedia articles, I just remember how little I should trust these things.
- edgar_allan_poe 7y agoyeah, but in this case it's a real problem
- m463 7y agoI wonder if sand is only found on the intersection of water and land, or if it found throughout the ocean (just inconveniently under the water) Also, on a humorous note: Geologists: 'We May Be Slowly Running Out Of Rocks' https://www.theonion.com/geologists-we-may-be-slowly-running-out-of-rocks-1819571484 https://www.theonion.com/geologists-we-may-be-slowly-running...
- TheGallopedHigh 7y agoI believe the sand theft taking place is done as the sand is good for construction. Namely jagged enough for aggregate (hence why the can’t use smooth sand from the desert). The shape of the sand is primarily caused by the motion of the water.
- kendallpark 7y agoSee also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beach_nourishment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beach_nourishment
- andrepd 7y agoYes, I did also just watch that HAI video... :)
- m-i-l 7y agoAlso happened in London until 1871, although technically it wasn't theft as it was from common land which had the right to dig confirmed in 1780: "During the 19th century, there was an increasing demand for the high quality Bagshot Sand, for use in building and iron foundry casts. In response to this demand ... Eight loads a day in 1814 rose to thirty loads a day in 1866. ... [By 1871] The whole space on the summit of the hill, to the right and the left of the high road ... has been ruthlessly dug up for gravel and sand; leaving a dreary, desert prospect of hideous pits and shapeless heaps as far as the view extends over the hill itself, with a few miserable furze bushes here and there, a ragged tuft of dusty ling; but without one square yard of verdant turf for a baby to roll on. The very body of the earth had been cut away to an amazing depth, with the entire surface of those parts of the heath which formed the brow and crown of the hill. Holes are scooped out close to the high road thirty feet or forty feet deep ..."[0] [0] https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/things-to-do/green-spaces/hampstead-heath/heritage/Pages/sand-digging-at-the-heath.aspx https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/things-to-do/green-spaces/ha...
- vijaybritto 7y agoI'm from Tamilnadu state in south India and I have seen this happen. This is called _manarkollai_ and its so rampant. There are some activist groups trying to make a difference and it has resulted in very little progress. Immediate substitution to coarse river sand is needed!
- 3dprintscanner 7y agoThe 99% Invisible podcast ran a good episode on this subject, and particularly the effects of sand theft. https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/built-on-sand/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/built-on-sand/
- sigmaprimus 7y agoFirst off I think this is terrible, people and companies that take part in these practices including the purchasers should be caught and punished. That being said, this reminds me of a story about people taking the pebbles from the island the ABBA movie Mama Mia was filmed and to some extent the planet Bethselamin in the book HHG2G.
- dirtyid 7y agoThis is a topic with very scant literature. I'm curious if there's an account of global sand reserves. Unlike oil/shale, other mineral resources, it seems like available construction sand is basically all discovered by virtue of being on the surface. I'm wondering if there are predictions for peak sand, what current sand reserves translates to in total tons of future concrete production etc. Otherwise it seems like the kind of resource that need to managed properly, seeing how land reclamation projects will be increasingly necessary with raising water levels. Engineered timbre can replace some building needs, but I can't think of an alternative to concrete for other critical infrastructure like roads.
- Nasrudith 7y agoSand is also renewable - it ie created by erosion continously. Although the volume is likely insufficient. If a holy grail of cheap enough energy grinding solid rock through some means could theoretically produce the desired grained sand at an affordable price.
- FrozenVoid 7y agoWasn't there a startup few years ago that made desert sand usable for construction? What happened?
- jacobwilliamroy 7y agoThere was a lot of sandmining happening on Maui up until recently. They have these massive inland sand dunes and MAUI LANI PARTNERS was stealing it under the guise of "grading". I think it's atrocious because there are many beloved people buried there. Kanaka would sometimes bury bodies in the sand as such is cleansing. Despite attempts to destroy Kanaka culture and history, there are still many living descendants who remember the names of their kupuna, buried in that sand. I feel really sick about this. The flesh decays and becomes part of the sand, and a lot of what MAUI LANI PARTNERS stole was sold off to make concrete for buildings and the rail which the city of honolulu is attempting to build. I mean... just... Jesus Fuckin Christ.
- jacobwilliamroy 7y agoNice video from Maui Now about it. I think Claire and Kaniloa do a better job explaining it than I do. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PYELSO3Uyb8&t=13 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PYELSO3Uyb8&t=13
- masonic 7y agoA Mexican company has been stealing tons of sand from Monterey (CA) beaches for years: https://www.theinertia.com/environment/stealing-sand-the-theft-of-californias-coast/ https://www.theinertia.com/environment/stealing-sand-the-the...
- jokoon 7y agoIn construction, are bricks a good alternative to concrete?
- 2rsf 7y agoThey are complementing each other, concrete is a terrible heat insulator, hard to work with (requires molds and steel reinforcements), heavier than bricks which requires a stronger design, hard to live with (think of drilling, moving walls), more expensive than bricks (depending on the exact usage though) and gives no benefits over bricks in terms of strength. Bricks are used to build the bulk of walls, and concrete is used in floors and reinforcement of the walls and above/around doors and windows
- jokoon 7y agoWhat are the other disadvantage of brick? I guess you cannot make 4+ stories buildings with it?
- dirtyid 7y agoUnreinforced masonry, like a church, are extremely inefficient in terms of material and labor, think 6 foot deep walls that taper up to carry load. Optimally, bricks work in conjunction with reinforced concrete skeleton for modern construction. Cost is also a big factor, especially in developed countries, more so for high quality finishes. There's a case for small brick constructions in less developed countries with high unemployment and low wages. In terms of embodied energy, brick veneer (composite of materials with a layer of exterior brick) typically have the best life-cycle ecological performance, 20%-60% better, compared to curtain wall (glass+steel) and precast concrete panels, across many climates and regions. Engineered wood for buildings is probably the better option in the long run. There's a lot of movement recently, construction is a very slow and conservative industry though. Probably need for results to be validated. A lot of claims are by industry publications. But intuitively it feels right.
- Sharlin 7y agoI'm not sure what the GP means. Precast concrete elements have been a ubiquitous building material since the 60s, exactly because they're much cheaper to make and build from than brick walls.
- maury91 7y agoIn Sardinia (Italy) we have a similar problem, many tourists steals beach sand as a souvenir. The number of tourists that does this is so big that some beaches got smaller, and goverment has choose to put a stop by giving huge fines and possibly jail time. https://www.google.com/search?q=sardinian+sand+theft https://www.google.com/search?q=sardinian+sand+theft
- londons_explore 7y agoI'd be interested to see the distribution of amounts of sand stolen per person. If 10% of people steal a shot-glass of sand as a momento from a beach 100 meters X 100 meters which has 1000 daily visitors, the sand goes down 1cm every hundred years, which is waay slower than sealevel rise. If people start taking sackfulls home, the balance changes quickly though.
- maury91 7y agousually, there are pictures in the articles with images of the stolen sand. The majority of time is not a shot-glass, but more like a bottle. Here some pictures: https://www.ilmessaggero.it/photogallery_img/MED/31/07/4453107_21753016_839907326182758_4434824609517010183_o.jpg https://www.ilmessaggero.it/photogallery_img/MED/31/07/44531... https://www.repstatic.it/content/nazionale/img/2019/04/26/113558345-5f0e53e0-9766-44e9-a56e-90d7fa3f8bb4.jpg https://www.repstatic.it/content/nazionale/img/2019/04/26/11... https://filecdn.nonsprecare.it/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/FURTI-DI-SABBIA11.jpg https://filecdn.nonsprecare.it/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/FU... https://www.gelestatic.it/thimg/xdU2x4YwGfNp33fZp0ePMCBh38M=/fit-in/960x540/https%3A//www.lastampa.it/image/contentid/policy%3A1.37366388%3A1566372139/ansa_20190819_101124_001770.JPG%3Ff%3Ddetail_558%26h%3D720%26w%3D1280%26%24p%24f%24h%24w%3D3119670 https://www.gelestatic.it/thimg/xdU2x4YwGfNp33fZp0ePMCBh38M=... https://trekking.it/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/copertina1-1000x586.jpg https://trekking.it/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/copertina1-10... A shot-glass is around the tolerable level because it's the amount of sand you find in your shorts when you are back home from the beach.
- homonculus1 7y ago
- edgar_allan_poe 7y agothis is interesting. never really thought about it happening since nobody's really talking about it. looks like a bigger problem than it sounds. oh well
- jotm 7y agoRelated: Chernozem "theft". Ukraine is literally selling off its soil smh
- newmac 7y agoThere is a rocky beach near where I live in Halifax Nova Scotia that was once a very large sand beach. It was mostly "taken" for highway and other construction: http://library2.smu.ca/xmlui/bitstream/handle/01/25865/hudak_magen_l_masters_2014.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y http://library2.smu.ca/xmlui/bitstream/handle/01/25865/hudak... "However, from as early as the 1940s, the beach was also the site of commercial resource extraction. Because of this, by 1966, it had ceased to operate as a fully functional recreational site. Rapid and dramatic changes to its geomorphological formation, due to the large-scale removal of its sand and gravel, saw the gradual reduction of Silver Sands’ once ‘silvery’ crest, into a predominantly rocky shoal. Particularly between the latter half of the 1950s and the mid 1960s, but all the way until 1971, its material was being used for various government construction projects around the Halifax Regional Municipality. "
- csense 7y agoIsn't sand made of silicon, which is one of the most common elements on Earth? I don't quite understand why it's scarce enough that stealing it's viable.
- revax 7y agoOnly some sands are suitable for construction. Dubai import most of their sand despite being in a desert.
- 1-6 7y agoMost of the time, the sand is used to create new land. It's not scarce but it's not everywhere either.
- lm28469 7y agoDiamonds are made of carbon which is also very common... But more seriously: different sands have different properties, and when you need a shit ton of something no matter how cheap it is stealing is always cheaper.
- Bubbadoo 7y agoSand theft is very rampant on Long Island. On the north shore, where there have been a slew of high-density developments built, first thing developers do is scrape all of the sand from the lot. Some projects are actually built on what was once sandy bluffs. The sand indigenous to LI is a fine sugar sand, valued for it's quality in concrete manufacture. There are entire lots where sand is excavated and then left for drainage issues. As one can guess, sand mining is heavily regulated and usually prohibited by law. The sand acts as a filter as water leaches down to recharge the aquifer where most of LI gets it's drinking water from.So think about that... they're destroying the land's ability to provide potable water because of greed. Yes, the aquifer fresh water levels are decreasing and pollution plumes are growing. As the fresh water level goes down, it acts to suck salt water into the aquifer.
- stebann 7y agoIt would be interesting to relate this practices with the mafia's construction companies and building materials theft in grand.