Glass

Be sure to leave your beer bottles at the beach...

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12026379

Crushing glass bottles down to particles having the characteristics (physical and geotechnical) of natural sand seems like a novel idea. Some Broward County (Southeast Florida) engineers and scientists believe that the glass sand performs well in the natural environment; they even claim that the glass sand is amenable to Loggerhead turtle nesting.

Interesting... but considering that 2,000,000 cubic yards of sand---roughly the volume of nourished material placed for the John U. Lloyd State Park project ending February 2006---is enough to fill a line of dump trucks from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida to Richmond, Virginia, how many beer bottles would it take to produce that volume of sand? Better still, what is the enegy cost associated with running the machinery used to grind the bottles into fine particles? I can appreciate the difficulties associated with mining sand from as much as 30 miles offshore, but I don't think you could find enough bottles lying around to produce 2,000,000 cubic yards of faux sand... well, except:

- during football season
- in college towns
- and possibly after a NASCAR event in Daytona

... at least the future of Daytona Beach is looking positive!

-BMW