Will traditional construction sand be replaced?

Deputy Prime Minister Trinh Dinh Dung has just requested the Ministry of Construction to coordinate with relevant ministries and branches to immediately find solutions to replace traditional sand for landfill and construction.

Illustration

The request was made by the Deputy Prime Minister at a conference on the investment situation in transport infrastructure in the Mekong Delta held at the Southwest Steering Committee last weekend.

Previously, many key projects in the Mekong Delta such as Trung Luong - My Thuan Expressway (Tien Giang), National Highway 60 (Ben Tre), Lo Te - Rach Soi (Kien Giang)... were affected due to sand shortage and skyrocketing sand prices.

Construction units in these areas said that in recent times, the price of sand has tripled, even to more than 200,000 VND/m3. For large-scale projects, the increase in sand prices not only affects the progress of the project but also increases the cost.

For a country with a terrain stretching along more than 3,000km of coastline like Vietnam, the story of “sand fever” seems absurd. From a geographical perspective, sand is formed in the downstream areas of large rivers, which also means that wherever there is a river, there is sand. With large river systems such as the Red River, Thai Binh River (in the North), Mekong River (in the South) and many other rivers flowing across the territory to find their way to the sea, sand seems to be an endless resource.

But everything has its limits. And most importantly, if humans do not plan to use natural resources properly, no matter how large they are, they can degrade and become exhausted.

In fact, over the years, sand has been “underestimated” in construction materials. With the mentality that sand from the river can just be scooped up and sold, people and businesses have abused sand in construction.

Sand is not only used as a raw material (in mandatory cases) such as mixing mortar for plastering walls, mixing concrete, but is also used in cases where it can be completely replaced, such as leveling the ground.

For each project, after digging the foundation, a certain amount of soil is removed, more or less depending on the scale of the project. After pouring the foundation, an almost equivalent amount of soil will be filled in, but this time with sand.

Behind the “underestimation” of sand is the laxity in managing sand mining on rivers. In recent years, the situation of sand mining has continuously “heated up” and its manifestation is social conflicts related to sand mining.

The climax of the conflict in the “sand war” was the incident in early 2017, when the Chairman of the Provincial People’s Committee and the Director of the Bac Ninh Provincial Police Department received threatening text messages from “sand bandits”. The incident was so serious that Mr. Nguyen Tu Quynh, Chairman of the Bac Ninh Provincial People’s Committee, had to ask for help from the Prime Minister and the central authorities had to intervene.

After the Prime Minister’s strong direction, the authorities tightened the management of sand mining, and the illegal sand mining situation calmed down. However, at the same time, the “fever” of construction sand increased again.

Looking at many developed countries, over the years, along with the exploitation and rational use of sand, they have sought alternatives to sand in construction. That is, using waste slag, rocks, clay to level the ground, using crushed stone to replace sand for concrete.

Illegal sand dredging boats in many river areas in Nghe An. Photo: Archive

And right in Vietnam, there is a typical example of using artificial sand to replace natural sand, which is the Son La hydroelectric project. According to data from the Department of Construction Materials (Ministry of Construction), this project used up to 90% artificial sand.

Along with solutions to combat “sand bandits”, Deputy Prime Minister Trinh Dinh Dung requested ministries to coordinate with local People’s Committees to review plans, supplement and adjust if necessary for sand and gravel mining activities in river beds, river mouths, in waterways, and seaport areas; as a basis for licensing sand and gravel mining according to plans associated with protecting river banks, coastlines, and preventing landslides.

The Deputy Prime Minister also requested the Ministry of Construction to preside over and coordinate with relevant ministries and branches to focus on immediately researching the search for alternative materials to traditional construction sand and leveling sand to meet the demand for sand for investment in the construction of transport infrastructure systems in the Mekong Delta in particular and the whole country in general.

Authorities need to be more proactive in managing the planning and exploitation of natural sand, along with having incentive mechanisms to facilitate the use of artificial sand instead. Only then will the sand “fever” cool down, “sand bandits” will no longer have a place to live, and more importantly, resources will be preserved and exploited reasonably and sustainably.

According to Quang Le/chinhphu.vn