Florida beaches....sun, sea, crushed glass?

[madfloridian]

From Stogie's Tampa Bay Right Wing Watch blog:

Florida Beaches, Sun, Sea, And Some Crushed Glass



Officials in Florida have come up with the sharp idea of using recycled glass to replenish denuded beaches. The glass grains would be mixed with sand and sprinkled on the shore. But you won’t get splinters in your flip-flops: sand and glass are both made from silica

Sun, sea, sangria and . . . crushed glass? Officials in Florida have come up with the sharp idea of using recycled glass to replenish denuded beaches. The glass grains would be mixed with sand and sprinkled on the shore. But you won’t get splinters in your flip-flops: sand and glass are both made from silica.

“Basically, what we’re doing is taking the material and returning it back to its natural state,” says Phil Bresee, the recycling manager for Broward County. It means less stuff going into landfill, and the production of a commodity – sand – that is genuinely needed.

Broward County is estimated to make $1 billion a year from its 24 miles of beaches. But it is getting more expensive to replace the sand that is washed away. New sand is dredged from the ocean floor and piped to shore. Regulations to protect offshore reefs, however, have pushed dredging sites farther out to sea. Between 1991 and 2005, dredging costs more than doubled to about $20 million (£9.9 million) per million tonnes of sand. Recycling would produce only a fraction of the sand needed – about 16,000 tonnes a year – but it is regarded as a useful stopgap for the worst erosion sites.

The idea has provenance. Two ocean dump sites for glass – one off California and one off Hawaii – resulted in the glass being assimilated into the sand. Beaches in New Zealand and the Caribbean have also used recycled glass.

Will beaches in Florida go for silica implants

There is some concern about how it will affect the ecosystems on the shoreline. Hope it works better than the idea of putting tires on the bottom of the ocean off Florida's coast to protect the reefs. They are pulling up those tires now at the cost of millions.

[bullimiami]

1. its already basically crushed silica, limestone and shells.

i dont see why it should be a problem but hopefully someone is really researching the possible unexpected consequences.

[phylny]

2. My daughter is doing her senior year engineering thesis on replenishing sand to

protect beaches and deter erosion.

From what she's told me, and from what little I understand :), all sand is not equal due to organisms (clams?) that filter grains of sand. Sand grains that are too little aren't properly filtered, and sand grains that are too large can't pass through the organism, and therefore the organism dies, and the sand isn't properly filtered.

Yeah, I don't know what I'm talking about, but she does and I, too, hope someone who knows what they're doing is consulted.

[madfloridian]

4. I also hope they have good consultants

I have no idea about it myself.

Sounds like your daughter does.

Florida's history of putting the environment first is not exactly stellar, though.

:hi:

[jdlh8894]

6. You're right

They plow the natural dunes down,truck in sand from the river bottoms,just to keep the tourists happy.

[jdlh8894]

5. Contrary to a lot of folks beliefs

All beaches are NOT sand.

[jdlh8894]

3. Glass comes from sand

We recycle plastic,cardboard,etc. Why not put it back to where it came from?

[sandnsea]

7. It would be a different temperature

I would think. Doesn't glass hold heat more than dirt? I suspect in 20 years we'll be hearing the harm of these glass beaches. Not to mention, as the erosion continues, are they just going to end up with 100% glass? Stop the erosion or accept that buildings are going to have to be moved.

[madfloridian]

8. I only know my feet hurt just thinking about it.

I remember when they sunk all the tires and bragged how they would preserve the ocean life. We sort of laughed at that at the teachers' table at lunch one day....but turns out sadly we were right.

[Radio_Lady]

9. Here's a photo from Glass Beach, Kauai, Hawaii...

As I understand it, they simply tossed bottles into the ocean and this is the result after many years. They are not processing their glass anymore this way.

See if you can make out the beer bottle colors (green, yellow, amber) as well as the cobalt blue (used to be very popular). We have several small containers of this kind of glass.

By the way, glass tumbled in the ocean is as smooth as... as glass!

[L0oniX]

10. Glass IS recyclable, that's why other states have $ deposits on bottles.

Get a clue, Tampa!