The rising cost of a grain of sand is inflating the price of materials such as glass and cement even as energy bills flatten out, highlighting its importance for everything from jam jars to global infrastructure projects.
Sand is the world’s most used natural material, mainly in construction and in fracking for oil and gas, as well as some industrial processes such as memory chips owing to its high quartz content. Sand is the primary raw material for glass, accounting for about three quarters of the ingredients.
Vast land reclamation projects such as Singapore’s Tuas mega port, due to be completed in the 2040s, have caused demand for sand to soar in recent years, even as awareness has grown that dredging it from river flood plains, beaches and seabed can lead to coastal erosion and flooding.