Beach Glass Seeds

The town of Fort Bragg is divided on whether the glass at Glass Beach should be collected or not. Some feel it's a local treasure to be protected, while others feel that the glass brings tourism to the town. The curator at the Glass Beach Museum is in the second camp. In fact he thinks that the town should again dump its glass into the ocean. Since glass is made from sand, he considers dumping glass at the beach to be the ultimate form of recycling. At the museum you can purchase glass seeds to "plant" along the shore.  We spotted these freshly planted seeds just before the rising tide swallowed them up. 

Glass Beach

Throughout its early history, and in fact up to 1967, the coastal town of Fort Bragg dumped its garbage over a cliff into the Pacific Ocean.  Most of it was burned, but the remaining glass and pottery, churned by the waves, was worn smooth and collected in coves along the shoreline. On our way into town, we stopped in at the Beach Glass Museum for a bit of history on this unusual site.  Well worth the $2.00 admission, we learned what went into the large variety of colored glass that can be found along the beach, and the general use for each color of glass. It was pretty fascinating for a die-hard beachcomber like me. There must have been ten different shades of green alone! After the tour we got a map the the not-so-"secret" beach.  Too much fun for one afternoon!