‘Totally unsustainable’ sand mining harms marine environments, new data suggest

  • New data from the newly launched platform Marine Sand Watch suggest that the dredging industry is extracting about 6 billion tons of sand from the marine environment annually.
  • Experts say the extraction of sand can have numerous impacts on the marine environment, such as harming biodiversity, polluting water and making coastlines more vulnerable to sea level rise.
  • While the sand mining industry is currently operating at unsustainable levels, experts say there are solutions to mitigate its damage.

Source: ‘Totally unsustainable’ sand mining harms marine environments, new data suggest