Where does sand come from? Has any thought been given to manufacturing it?

Particles of sand, sometimes sorted by water transport into deposits of remarkably uniform size, are continuously being formed, often from the bedrock of earth, by weathering and erosion by chemical and physical forces.The physical forces include water, wind and ice, in the form of the plant grindstones of glaciers.
Sand particles may be glued together along with other minerals who form new sedimentary rocks, like the familiar sandstone, and sedimentary rocks may in turn by weathered into new sand.
Quartz (A compound of the elements silicon and oxygen) is a very common component of primary rocks and is resistant to destruction by either mechanical or chemical means.
It is not surprising that it makes up the biggest share of both sand and the larger than the very fine particles of clay and silt and smaller than gravel and pebbles.
One widely used scale, the Wentworth Udden scale, puts the size of sand particles at approximately 0.0025 inches to 0.08 inches.
The machinery earth provides for turning out such small hard particles if far cheaper to operate than any commercial equipment that could do the same job.
Though there is a dwindling supply of mined sand on the continents because of restrictions on land use, there is a very large potential supply of offshore sand in the shallow shelf seas, presumably the results of cons of both the ocean’s undertow, chewing on the continents, and water and wind transparent, carrying sand from inland.