This Californian Beach Is Covered In Jewels
This is mother nature at her finest – turning trash into treasure.
Glass Beach is located in MacKerricher State Park (near Fort Bragg, California). For many decades, the beach was polluted by Fort Bragg residents, who threw their household garbage over cliffs and on to the beach. Referred to locally as “The Dumps”, the beach was the final resting place for piles of trash, glass, appliances and even cars. When the rubbish piles got too big, the Union Lumber Company who owned the land would just burn the steaming heaps. So pretty much, hell on earth.
Fast forward a few decades to 1967. City leaders closed off the area and clean up programs removed the larger bits of beachside debris, leaving the smaller pieces of glass which were eventually smoothed by the endless turning of the tide. Nature, huh. The result was a vast multicoloured cluster of glass pebbles that shimmer like a treasure-trove of jewels in the sunlight.
In 1998, the empire of trash went through a five year process of being sold to the state of California who incorporated it into MacKerricher State Park, leaving it open for public access. There’s now a steady tourism trade to the former tip. Talk about a makeover success story.
