Resource April 28, 2017

Meet the Journalist: Vince Beiser

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Land reclamation works are on-going at this area of Tuas, Singapore's westernmost area where a new massive container port—the world's largest in the next 30 years—is being built. The port authority is using materials dredged from the nearby seabed and earth excavated from tunneling work on a subway line to cut use of sand by about 70 per cent in the building of this pier—which will be one of four eventually. Singapore has been short of sand for its sizeable and continual land reclamation and construction…
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Concrete. Glass. Silicon. Our civilization is built on the most important yet most overlooked...

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Vince Beiser reporting on the Thane River in northern India.
Vince Beiser reporting on the Thane River in northern India.

Skyscrapers and shopping malls from Boston to Beijing and the silicon chips in computers and cellphones are all made with sand or concrete—which is sand glued together with cement. Sand, Vince Beiser tells us, "is the most important solid substance on earth and the foundation of modern civilization." But the world is running out.

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