Glass Beach – The Dump You’ll Want to Visit
Before you
say anything about the content of this article, I hate people who
litter. I’ll judge you if I think you’re too lazy to recycle. I hate
pollution and the death of our fragile ecosystems and all the rest. But-
with that disclaimer out of the way-
Glass Beach
in Fort Bragg, California is the incredible result of human
wastefulness and the resilience of nature. I’ve been trolling around for
lesser
known landscapes
to road trip to and explore, and stumbled across this chunk of
multicoloured west coast paradise. These days, Glass Beach is a
protected part of MacKerricher State Park, but in 1949, it was the site
of an unrestricted dump. For 18 years, people drove out to the scenic
expanse of ocean cliffs, marveled at the beauty of the natural world and
the majesty of the depths, and then threw all their shit in.
Glass Beach, California – The Dump You’ll Want to Visit
Eventually,
California realized that dumping automobiles, appliances, toxic
substances and razor sharp shards of glass into the water was probably a
bad idea, and looked elsewhere for a dumping site. The beaches under
the cliffs lay polluted, cluttered and ruined, and were
basically treated as a forgotten ‘mistake.’ Despite our obviously
brilliant handling of the situation, Mother Earth had a few tricks up
her sleeve, and spent the next 30 years tumbling away the jagged edges
of our insensitivity and leaving behind brilliant pebbles of polished
glass. As the shores grew into glimmering beaches, the state realized
that people were visiting to collect the glass and to see the rainbow
sands reflecting the sun, and quickly annexed it into a national park.
The result? We finished up what nature graciously started, spent a few
years cleaning up rusting metal hulks and all sorts of wonderfully
dangerous debris (nothing says sandcastle fun like getting tetanus from a
lead-filled 50s throwback), and Glass Beach is now a protected treasure
that I’m dying to visit. While I can only imagine the sight of the
colours of translucent glass turning in the sun and turbulent surf, I’m
thinking I might just keep my shoes on.
known landscapes
to road trip to and explore, and stumbled across this chunk of
multicoloured west coast paradise. These days, Glass Beach is a
protected part of MacKerricher State Park, but in 1949, it was the site
of an unrestricted dump. For 18 years, people drove out to the scenic
expanse of ocean cliffs, marveled at the beauty of the natural world and
the majesty of the depths, and then threw all their shit in.
Eventually,
California realized that dumping automobiles, appliances, toxic
substances and razor sharp shards of glass into the water was probably a
bad idea, and looked elsewhere for a dumping site. The beaches under
the cliffs lay polluted, cluttered and ruined, and were
basically treated as a forgotten ‘mistake.’ Despite our obviously
brilliant handling of the situation, Mother Earth had a few tricks up
her sleeve, and spent the next 30 years tumbling away the jagged edges
of our insensitivity and leaving behind brilliant pebbles of polished
glass. As the shores grew into glimmering beaches, the state realized
that people were visiting to collect the glass and to see the rainbow
sands reflecting the sun, and quickly annexed it into a national park.
The result? We finished up what nature graciously started, spent a few
years cleaning up rusting metal hulks and all sorts of wonderfully
dangerous debris (nothing says sandcastle fun like getting tetanus from a
lead-filled 50s throwback), and Glass Beach is now a protected treasure
that I’m dying to visit. While I can only imagine the sight of the
colours of translucent glass turning in the sun and turbulent surf, I’m
thinking I might just keep my shoes on.
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