Glass Beach, California

Glass Beach, in Fort Bragg, California, is a curious spot. If you look closely at this photograph of the sand, you might notice that it looks unusually shiny. That's because this beach is covered in shards of broken glass that have been worn smooth by the surf. This beach used to be an unofficial city dump. People tossed all sorts of rubbish, even whole cars, off the cliffs onto this beach. The area was closed off in 1967 to prevent more garbage from accumulating and the sea went about its patient work of eroding the waste down to colourful pebbles.


Now, perhaps strangely, the dump has almost perfectly reversed its role. Instead of people dumping rubbish here, they come to collect it. The pretty glass pebbles and occasional spark plug are taken as souvenirs by visitors to the beach. It all seemed rather odd to me, but might be a strategy that we could use to address other environmental disasters. Perhaps if enough tourists could be convinced that a vial of oil from an oil spill is a desirable souvenir they would swarm on disaster areas and patiently siphon off the oil in tiny increments. Maybe we should all try to push this movement. Grab a couple of interesting bits of roadside rubbish and set them up on your coffee table as objets d'art. When people ask about them explain that it's the latest craze.

Another perk of my visit to the Glass Beach at Fort Bragg was a free lunch. Like my friend Robyn, I was delighted to discover that the blackberry bushes were in full fruit. Also like Robyn, I believe that fruit tastes about a zillion times better if you pick it yourself.