"Bid to save sandpaper at risk of extinction in Russia"

From the BBC:

Tradesmen have embarked on a mission to save one of the world's rarest abrasives, the diamond-tipped sandpaper, from extinction.

Fewer than 200 sheets of the rare cloth-backed wet-or-dry were thought to exist in 2009, and since then, the quantity has [sic] thought to have declined by a quarter each year. So a specialist team of carpenters and DIY wholesalers are flying to the warehouse in northeast Russia to collect the few remaining packets and investigate the possibility of reverse engineering new supplies.

The remaining stocks will be housed in Moscow B&Q for quarantine purposes, then moved to a specially built unit at the headquarters of the Wet & Wet-or-dry Trust (WWT) in Slimbridge, Gloucestershire, UK... Experts fear that, without intervention, the fine-graded but long-lasting sandpaper could be used up within ten years.