Competition, page-62

I watched Sand Wars, plus a TED talk about sand. A few interesting facts were: 845,000 dams around the world prevent half the sediment reaching the coast. UAE has heaps of desert sand but its too rounded, so doesn't stick together to make concrete; they import sand from OZ. Illegal mining a problem and in India the sand mafia kills people over it. Everything around us has sand in it - roads, cosmetics, toothpaste, wine (silicon dioxide), glass... building a nuclear power plant takes 12 million tonnes of sand. In Florida 90% of the beaches are disappearing. It was all rather depressing, but the TED talk ended on a positive note. If you take glass that doesn't get recycled because it's coloured, it can be crushed and turned into grains that you can put on beaches. Doesn't cause injuries; all good.