Each bottle of beer will have a glass bottle. Where did those glass bottles go? Americans actually use them to make sand! The sand that can be seen everywhere is so expensive!
In 2019, before the epidemic, my country's beer production was 37.65 million kiloliters! The United States on the other side of the ocean is no less than that, glass bottles alone produce 1,230 tons of per year. Faced with such a huge output, the Americans actually developed a set of waste glass bottle treatment solutions - sand making!
first sorts it from the collected garbage, and breaks the glass into pieces through the roller to extract it. Then disinfect it through a constant temperature dryer at 87 degrees Celsius to remove labels, paper scraps, bacteria and other debris. It is then classified into three categories through optical sorting machines: colorless, green and brown. Then repeatedly beat it to make particles with a minimum size of 600 microns. At this time, the glass sand has no edges and corners. It can be used in different occasions:
sand with slightly larger particles can be made into terrazzo , or paved in asphalt . Such a road can reduce the chance of vehicle rolling over. It can also reduce snow accumulation. It can also be made into concrete, glass fiber and remade into glass, and some are made into artificial soil for growing flowers and grass. There is only one who can’t imagine, nothing can’t be done. These glasses have many functions.
But why do Americans spend so much effort to make glass into sand? To be more detailed, there are only four words: " interests drive ".
The sand everywhere in your eyes actually lies behind the mystery behind it, and there is a huge industry of : the global sand and gravel industry !
Sand soil is a common resource on the earth, and is also a very widely used material for humans. From construction materials to chip manufacturing, many industries need to use this material, which is the second largest resource consumption of in human industrial production after water resources.
In the huge sand and gravel industry chain, the upstream of consists of sand and gravel ore, sand making equipment, blasting materials, etc.; the midstream is a variety of sand and gravel production suppliers, and the downstream directly corresponds to infrastructure, house construction, railways, highway construction and other fields.
In 2021, more than 5,500 companies in the United States served the sand and gravel industry. In the same year, my country's sand and gravel industry reached a scale of 2 trillion yuan. According to the market research structure BMR report, it is estimated that the total scale of the global sand and gravel industry will exceed US$600 billion in in 2026!
The scarcity of sand and gravel
Seventy percent of the earth are oceans, but this kind of salt water cannot be used directly, and people need to use fresh water. Most of the freshwater resources on the earth are located in glaciers in the North and South Poles, which are difficult for people to use. The only things that can be truly used by people are water resources such as freshwater rivers on land. Compared with the total amount, the available water resources are very limited.
The same situation also occurs in the sand and gravel industry. The vast desert is full of yellow sand. However, these sands are highly alkaline and too smooth, which is not conducive to engineering construction; the continuous coastline is full of sand, but the salt content of sea sand will gradually corrode the steel bars, which are prone to accidents when building houses. What is really suitable for is the river sand of the Tamsui River. And this kind of resource has become less and less. Currently, the global consumption of sand is about 40 billion tons per year, and has greatly exceeded the speed of natural production.
Faced with such limited resources, is human beings helpless?
is not the case. A large number of technical means can artificially manufacture sand and gravel. For example, the beginning mentioned is to use recycled glass to make sand, or simply crush the stone to make sand. This is the machine sand corresponding to natural sand.
Artificial sand making method
Machine sand making mainly uses sand making machine to crush, grind, screen, and clean various large pieces of stone, and perform mechanical sand making .
River sand and other natural sands are rounder due to long-term erosion of river water. machine sand obtains gravel by crushing stones. The sand and gravel have edges and angles, are relatively sharp, and have relatively more needle flakes.When cement and other structures are sticky, this structure has better adhesiveness, higher compressive resistance, and has a relatively long service life of .
machine sand is selected by artificially selected materials, with relatively uniform material of and stable properties of . Compared with natural sand , machine sand is not that complicated.
Moreover, machine sand has strong artificial control in particle size and fineness, and can be produced according to customer needs. These are things that natural sand cannot do.
However, the durability and robustness of machine sand is worse than that of natural river sand. If frictional impact is often received, admixtures need to be added and artificially controlled for indicators such as gray sand ratio.
As the natural output of natural sand such as river sand is limited, the proportion of natural sand and gravel decreases accordingly. At present, machine sand has accounted for more than 80% of the supply in my country's market. Why is the river sand produced by
limited by natural production?
This needs to be understood from three aspects: First, the mining of river sand will affect the stability of surrounding buildings. For example, if the sand and stones on the foundation of the dam are dug away, the water flow will directly impact the foundation of the dam, causing major harm. Is it okay to dig river sand far away from the embankment? Not necessarily! The pits formed by sand mining at the bottom of the river will continue to move under the action of water flow, especially upstream. Under this effect, even if sand is mined far downstream of the dam, after a long period of impact, the pit will reach the dam and cause safety hazards.
Secondly, shipping in rivers has requirements for water flow speed. If the flow rate exceeds four meters per second, many rivers cannot sail safely. Sand mining will form a height difference between the upper and lower riverbeds, and the water flow will increase as a result. Affect navigation safety .
Third, sand mining will produce a large amount of mud and water, causing serious damage to the river ecology .
According to the above three points, it can be seen that there are huge hidden dangers in the mining of natural river sand, so my country does not allow the mining of river sand at will.
Development direction of the ore industry
There are many restrictions on natural sand mining, so artificial sand making should have a bright future, right?
The answer is not satisfactory. There is another restrictive factor in human use of sand and gravel, that is, cost! Although human technology has developed to make sand at a relatively low cost, in the face of huge amounts, even a slight increase in the cost will cause a significant increase in the final cost. Therefore, driven by strong interests, people are still inclined to use natural sand and gravel.
Just like oil extraction, oil cannot be regenerated during the period of human civilization. People have calculated a long time ago that based on the detected output, oil is only enough for humans to exploit for decades. However, with the development of technology and the rise of oil prices, various mining technologies are constantly upgrading, and more oil can be exploited from limited resources. The period of oil depletion has been repeatedly extended.
As natural sand and gravel resources gradually shrink, the cost will also increase accordingly. When the cost is to a certain extent, artificial sand making will quickly fill this part of the market share. At the same time, the process of artificial sand making in will continue to improve, and the cost of sand making will gradually decrease.
The development of the sand and gravel industry has expanded from the competition of the original single sand and gravel ore to many areas such as sand making machine technology competition, industrial talent competition, upstream and downstream industrial chain integration competition, etc. But in the final analysis, it is necessary to improve efficiency, improve quality, and reduce costs in order to seize the market. In this regard, it will be a never-ending competition.
Through the glass sand making technology in the United States, we have learned about the huge global sand and gravel industry. The development of any industry has its own laws. As long as we explore development trends, we can seize opportunities, continuously strengthen and improve our abilities, and be invincible in future competition.
Author: Fang Ji Proofreader: Chuanchuan
