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This Beach Is Made of Trash

A sparkling beach in Northern California is made entirely of old dumped glass, smoothed into colorful pebbles by decades of waves.

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This beach is made of trash. Send this to someone who still throws bottles in the ocean. On the coast of Northern California, waves crash onto a beach that sparkles green, blue, and white in the sun. From a distance it looks like jewels.

It is not jewels. For decades, the town nearby used this exact spot as its dump, throwing away bottles, dishes, and broken glass straight into the water. The ocean did the rest.

Wave after wave, year after year, the ocean smoothed every sharp edge until the broken glass turned into small, round, colorful stones. Today it is a protected park, and picking up even one piece is against the law.