Singapore’s appetite for sand has become controversial. Some neighbors that used to sell it have objected, citing concerns about environmental degradation. Indonesia, Cambodia and Vietnam have ceased exports. When Malaysia banned overseas sales of sea sand in 2019, cynics suggested there was more at play: The country is trying to bulk up its own ports in and around the Straits of Johor that separate it from Singapore. Like Indonesia, Malaysia has built into the sea for real-estate developments.
Some strategies have been tested to reduce the country’s reliance on sand. In his National Day rally last year, Lee proposed poldering — a process, common in the Netherlands, that reclaims submerged land by erecting a sea wall and pumping out water. With competition for sand and other building materials intensifying across Asia, it also makes sense to think about substitutes, or whether there are geologically older inland sources that can be tapped, said Switzer. One possibility might be using pellets made from recycled glass or plastic, he added.
There may even be a solution to Singapore’s sand crunch nestled in a different problem: what to do with all its trash. Semakau Island is home to one of Singapore’s biggest rubbish-processing facilities. The site is likely to reach capacity in the middle of the next decade, but officials are working on a Plan B that would turn ash derived from incinerations as landfill to extend Semakau and help create a kind of hybrid sand, which the Straits Times reported in September could be used for concrete benches, footpaths and even a plaza.
The sea surrounding Singapore defined it long before Stamford Raffles established a British port two centuries ago. In the words of its first prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, the republic is a small place without natural resources or a hinterland, which has made the Port of Singapore critical to his vision of prosperity. As our boat ducked and weaved between containerships and tankers, spray from their swell smattering my face, it seemed there was nascent promise that commercial activity is coming back to life.
But while much of Singapore’s fortune is tied to the water, its journey from an impoverished dot to an Asian financial and commercial power has gone hand-in-hand with its need for space and sand. The country is surrounded by neighbors, at times both cooperative and jealous, that have both. Singapore’s stockpiles are as strategic as America’s petroleum reserves. Sand, or something like it, will be a hot commodity as long as there is a Singapore.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.