Chapter 17 - Best river sand mining practices vis-a-vis alternative sand making methods for sustainability

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The demand of river sand has of late risen exponentially in commensurate with high pace infrastructural development and concrete usage in construction works which has almost tripled over the past 2decades. Not only has this vital resource therefore depleted rapidly but it has also augmented the consequential ecological damages. This calls for responsible river sand mining practices and more importantly exploration of alternative sand manufacturing methods for source sustainability considering that over 40 billion tons of river sand and gravel is extracted worldwide annually. While critically examining the sand mining process and procedure vis-a-vis management, coordination and control, study of river hydrogeology, and sediment replenishment in top 10 river sand producing countries, this chapter has assorted few uniformly applicable protocols for safe sand mining to prevent any imminent “ecocide” of rivers. Further, an eco-friendlier alternative to river sand—the Manufactured sand (M sand)—is proposed, which besides being free of silt and clay has denser particle packing due to angularity of grains and meets all desirable technical specifications of concrete sand. The data set from design mixed laboratory trials of M Sand concrete in India, China, and Japan demonstrates among other characteristics a higher strength and greater workability. M Sand can be obtained from selected crushing of natural stone as well as from selected Over Burden dumps, for which manganese and Soap Stone mines field trials were conducted. The results are encouraging as it meets all specifications for its use such as in concrete, stowing sand, or wet mix macadam. The “best from waste” thus promises besides a qualified sustainable sand source, an excellent mineral conservation opportunity.