China eyes waste to solve shortage of sand, gravel

China is the largest consumer of sand and gravel for construction use in the world. Each year, its total demand is billions of metric tons.

Traditionally, people turn to rivers for the material. As the sediment concentration in the country's rivers plummets, however, the price of the material has exploded.

Now, in lieu of only exploiting nature, the country is eyeing other potential sources in its increasingly bigger piles of industrial waste to help address the shortage, according to a recent guideline published by 15 central government bodies.