Around six billion tonnes of sand is dredged from the world’s oceans every year, endangering marine life and coastal communities, the UN says.

Sand is the most exploited natural resource in the world after water and is used to produce concrete and glass.

The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said some vessels were acting as vacuum cleaners, dredging both sand and micro-organisms that fish feed on.

This means that life may never recover in some areas.

The new data coincides with the launch of a new analysis tool called Marine Sand Watch that monitors dredging activities using marine tracking and artificial intelligence.

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“The scale of environmental impacts of shallow sea mining activities and dredging is alarming,” said Pascal Peduzzi, who heads UNEP’s analytics centre GRID-Geneva.

The new platform estimates that out of some 50bn tonnes of sand and gravel used by humanity each year, an average of six billion tonnes come from the world’s oceans and seas.

This is the equivalent of “more than one million dump trucks every day”, Mr Peduzzi said.

The marine environment must be given time to recover, he said, adding that “it’s not sustainable”.

Large vessels were “basically sterilising the bottom of the sea by extracting sand and crunching all the microorganisms that are feeding fish”, Mr Peduzzi said.

Sometimes the sand is dredged to the bedrock, meaning marine life may never recover, he added.

The UNEP recommended that sand dredging should also be banned from beaches to protect coastal resilience and economies.

Sand is essential for constructing buildings, roads, hydroelectric dams and solar panels. It can also play an important environmental role, protecting communities from rising sea levels.

The South China Sea, the North Sea and the US east coast are among the areas where the most dredging has occurred, the report states

The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) has approved an upwards price increase in the price of pre paid electricity meters in the country.

In a circular signed and dated 5 September 2023 by the commission’s Chairman and Commissioner Legal, Licencing and compliance, Sanusi Garba and Dafe Akpeneye, respectively, it stated that a single phase pre paid meter would now cost N81,975.16k from the N58,661.69k while three phase pre paid meters is increased to N143,836.10k from N109,684.36k.

The circular said the new price was to ensure a fair and reasonable pricing of meters to both MAPs and end-use customers.

“Ensure MAP’s ability to recover reasonable costs associated with meter procurement and maintenance while ensuring that their pricing structure allows for a viable return on investment. Evaluate the affordability of meter services for consumers, aiming to prevent excessive pricing that could burden end-users. Ensure that MAPs are able to provide meters to end-use customers in the prevailing economic realities.

The Mirador Building is a residential housing building which is located the neighborhood of Sanchinarro, in the northeastern part of the capital city of the Kingdom of Spain, Madrid.

With 22 floors, Mirador follows an unusual design which was created by the Dutch architects studio MVRDV in collaboration with the Madrid architect, Lleó Blanca.

As the city was expanding and housing blocks were constructed all around the city, the architects wanted to create something like a collection of mini neighborhoods which will be stacked vertically around an even shaped sky square.

With its height of 63 meters (207 feet) above the surrounding neighborhood, there are some 155 apartments where the residents are able to go out on the common lookout area that can be seen at the aforementioned sky square at the very center of the building.

Grouped in small building blocks that are stacked and glued together in order to create one super block housing unit, Mirador Building has no front nor backside since the façades are identical.

This is because the architects wanted to avoid the constant repetition of the standard family homes which are always repetitive in the city.

Ultimately creating a modern masterpiece, the MVRDV Architects definitely outdid themselves since this kind of building is not often seen around Europe, even though there is some sort of pattern that can be seen in some Feng shui buildings in Asia.