Is the world really running out of sand?
Not in the sense that the planet will be left without any. The problem is the kind of sand we need and the speed we use it. The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) estimates that we extract about 50 billion tonnes of sand and gravel every year, which makes it the second most used resource on Earth after water [2][3]. Nature took hundreds of thousands of years to make that sand by eroding rock, and we are taking it faster than it is replaced. UNEP calls the difference the “sand gap” [2].
TradeMachines, whose infographic is above, put annual extraction at 40 billion tons in 2018 and called sand “the new oil” [1]. UNEP’s later figures are higher, and its 2022 report found extraction rising by about 6% a year, a rate it described as unsustainable [3][4]. Demand tripled over the two decades to 2019 [5], and UNEP now expects sand use for buildings alone to rise by up to 45% by 2060 [2].
So when people talk about a global sand shortage, they mean shortages of usable sand in particular places, rising prices and the damage done by taking it from rivers and coasts, rather than an empty planet.
Why we use so much sand
Most sand goes into construction. Sand and gravel make up most of the volume of concrete, and asphalt, glass and mortar all need sand too [1][3]. TradeMachines gives some useful scale: around 200 tons of sand for an average family house, 3,000 tons for a hospital and 45,000 tons for a mile of motorway [1].
Sand also goes into products most people never connect with it. It is the raw material for glass, the silicon in computer chips and solar panels, and an ingredient in toothpaste [1]. In the oil industry, fracking firms pump sand into wells to hold rock fractures open. The infographic shows US frac sand use climbing every year, from 52 million tons in 2012 to over 100 million tons by 2017, with up to 1,800 tons used at a single fracking site [1].
Behind the rising demand are population growth and urbanisation. More people living in cities means more housing, roads, bridges and airports, all built from concrete. China is the biggest consumer by far: it used more cement in the three years from 2011 to 2013 (about 6.6 gigatonnes) than the United States used in the whole of the 20th century (about 4.5 gigatonnes) [6]. The infographic makes the same point, though it puts it at two years [1].
Why can’t we use desert sand?
This is the question most people ask first, given how much sand there is in the Sahara. Desert sand grains have been shaped by wind rather than water. They are too smooth and rounded to lock together, so concrete made with them is weak [1][7]. Construction needs the angular grains found in rivers, lakes, beaches and the seabed. That is why Dubai, surrounded by desert, has imported sand for its building projects; TradeMachines notes that sand for the Burj Khalifa came from Australia [1].
There is a second constraint. Sand used in concrete is effectively lost from nature, while sand left in rivers, deltas and coasts protects shorelines from storm surges, filters water, keeps salt water out of coastal aquifers and provides habitat. UNEP describes these as “dead” and “alive” sand, and the two uses compete directly [2].
Where the sand comes from
Rivers carry sand down from eroding mountains, but dams trap much of it before it reaches the coast. TradeMachines puts the number of dams worldwide at 845,000, holding back about a quarter of the sand that would otherwise reach the sea [1]. That leaves deltas and beaches short of fresh supply just as more is being dug out of them.
The seabed is now a major source. UNEP’s Marine Sand Watch platform estimates that the marine dredging industry digs up about 6 billion tonnes of sand and sediment a year, the equivalent of more than a million dump trucks a day [8]. About half of dredging companies work inside Marine Protected Areas [2].
Land reclamation adds to the demand. Dubai’s Palm Islands took about 150 million tons of sand and The World archipelago about 500 million tons, according to TradeMachines, and building on The World stopped in 2008 [1]. Singapore has grown its land area by about a fifth by reclaiming land from the sea, largely with imported sand, and several neighbouring countries have since restricted sand exports [1].
Illegal sand mining and the sand mafia
Where sand is valuable and poorly regulated, criminal groups move in. The infographic maps cases from Morocco and Senegal to India, Malaysia, Jamaica and the Maldives, including a Jamaican beach stolen overnight and sand divers working without equipment [1]. TradeMachines also highlights the gap between the sand Singapore reported importing from Cambodia and the much smaller exports Cambodia reported, which points to sand being sold off the books [1]. UNEP’s reports describe the same pattern of weak governance, with extraction often unrecorded and unregulated [3][4].
What sand mining does to the environment
Taking sand from rivers and coasts has knock-on effects. UNEP links unsustainable extraction to river pollution, flooding, shrinking aquifers, worsening droughts, coastal erosion and the loss of habitat for fish, turtles, birds and crabs [2][5]. When sand is dredged from river beds, banks collapse and bridges can be undermined; the infographic gives examples of bridge failures in Taiwan, India and Portugal [1]. Beaches that lose their sand supply retreat, which hits tourism and leaves coasts more exposed to storms and sea level rise [2].
The infographic ends with two predictions, that the Maldives will be gone and that all beaches will have disappeared by 2100 [1]. Those are the creator’s claims; UNEP’s reports do not make them.
Alternatives to sand
The fixes are mostly about using less new sand and replacing it where possible:
- Recycled concrete and demolition waste crushed and reused as aggregate. UNEP recommends this as one of the simplest ways to cut demand [4].
- Ore-sand, a by-product of mineral processing that can replace natural sand and reduces mine waste [4].
- Crushed glass, which TradeMachines says can cut costs by up to 14% and CO2 by up to 18% in concrete [1].
- Earth building, such as unfired clay and rammed earth, which uses soil instead of concrete [1].
- Better governance: UNEP calls for sand to be treated as a strategic resource, with mapping, monitoring, extraction permits and national plans [2][4].
Questions about running out of sand
Are we running out of sand?
We are using sand faster than nature replaces it, about 50 billion tonnes a year, so the sand suitable for construction is becoming scarce in many places [2][3]. Sand as a whole will not run out, but cheap, local, usable sand is.
Why is there a sand shortage when deserts are full of it?
Desert sand grains are rounded by the wind and too smooth to bind in concrete, so builders need sand from rivers, lakes, coasts and the seabed [7].
What is sand mostly used for?
Construction, mainly concrete and asphalt, followed by glass, electronics, land reclamation and fracking [1][3].
Is sand a renewable resource?
Only very slowly. Sand forms as rock erodes over hundreds of thousands of years, so at today’s rate of use it behaves like a finite resource [2].
Can we make sand?
Yes, by crushing rock, glass or old concrete. Manufactured sand and recycled aggregate are already used, but they cost energy and do not replace sand’s role in rivers and on coasts [4].
Sources
- TradeMachines, Why the world is running out of sand, April 2018, the original article for this infographic.
- UN Environment Programme, Sand: Wanted dead and alive. Use it wisely, warns the UN, 12 May 2026.
- UN Environment Programme, Our use of sand brings us up against the wall, says UNEP report, 26 April 2022.
- UN Environment Programme, The problem with our dwindling sand reserves, 6 February 2023.
- UN Environment Programme, Rising demand for sand calls for resource governance, 7 May 2019.
- The Washington Post, How China used more cement in 3 years than the U.S. did in the entire 20th century, 24 March 2015.
- BBC Future, Why the world is running out of sand, 8 November 2019.
- UN Environment Programme, UNEP Marine Sand Watch reveals massive extraction in the world’s oceans, 5 September 2023.
Last reviewed 2 November 2026
