The United Nations warns of a sand crisis in the world!

A United Nations report on Tuesday called for urgent measures to avoid a "sand crisis" in the world, including a ban on beach dredging, with demand increasing to 50 billion tons annually with population growth and urbanization.

Sand is the world's most exploited natural resource after water, but its use is largely unconstrained, meaning it is being consumed faster than it can be replaced by geological processes that take hundreds of thousands of years, according to a United Nations Environment Program report.

The global consumption of sand in glass, concrete and building materials has tripled over two decades to 50 billion tons annually, or about 17 kilograms per capita each day, according to the report, damaging rivers and coasts and even destroying small islands.

"We now find ourselves in a situation where the needs and expectations of our societies cannot be met without better management of sand resources," said Sheila Agarwal Khan, Director of the Economics Division at UN Environment, in the foreword to the report.

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