Old and New: Fort Bragg, CA

March 29, 2006

Garbage practices that seem a matter of course in one generation may become utterly distasteful and completely unimaginable a generation or two later. Few people in the Bay Area throw glass in a garbage can without a pang of conscience these days, but when they were younger they undoubtedly never thought about it twice. In the 1930s, it was normal to throw household garbage into the bay (with the idea of improving real estate values, of all things), and now the popular outrage over such proceedings would be very clamorous indeed.

These days, Fort Bragg says in its official slogan that it's the place "where the Pacific meets the redwoods," but not too long ago it was actually where the ocean met the public dump. In the 1950s and 1960s, household garbage, discarded electronics, and junked cars found their way into the ocean right here at Glass Beach, just north of the historic downtown. The beach has been cleaned up since then, but it is still scattered all over with beach glass, small beads of polished white, green, brown, and blue glass. Even more unusual are the small components, such as sparkplugs, copper wire, and transistors that have been melded into the rocklike compaction of sand and gravel that lies just at the head of the pounding surf.

Today, the northern part of California participates in all the usual curbside collection and recycling programs. Fort Bragg's garbage is exported to Kern, Marin, and Contra Costa counties. And composting and recycling centers are to be found locally. For instance, in McKinleyville, a little way up the coast, yard waste may be dropped off on Saturdays between the hours of 10:00 and 4:00 at $3.50 per carload. The rest of the time, the usual gate bars the way to yard waste donors who arrive out of order.

Marijke Rijsberman

More Information
Glass Beach
Images of Glass Beach
Fort Bragg Waste Stream Profile