But even though sand is cheap, the purified silicon needed for chips is expensive to make as, indeed, are the chips themselves.
The movement has its roots, not in the austere Islamic fundamentalism that dominates popular Western imagination these days, but in the Beat Generation and the hippies who pursued spiritual quests to Morocco when it was a counterculturalist Mecca of sun, sand and cheap hashish.
Sand is cheap because there's so much of it.
Hot oil was considerably less common than boiling water or heated sand, which were cheap and extremely effective; even "dust from the street" could be used.
Why spend a summer cowering under parasols in British beer gardens when you can easyJet over to the continent for a few days of sun, sand, and suspiciously cheap seafood?
Instead of thick chips sparkling with salt, or bucket-smoothed sand-castles, expect cheap boxes of wine, an eight-day long game of Monopoly and a heated argument about Operation Yewtree.
Buying the raw materials, gravel, Portland cement and sand is considerably cheaper than buying pre-mixed concrete patching.
The sheer plastic above my eyes is stained, and wherever I turn the world looks framed and distant, a dirty cheap painting of sand, then sand from another angle.
And while playing volleyball in the backyard may be convenient, building a sand pit is not cheap.
At an inspection visit before JV China delivered 9 dolphins, 10 sea lions and 6 whales early last year, Mr. Desmond found that only half of the chlorine jets worked, filters had been filled with a cheap, ineffective sand and workers had not been properly trained.
