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LOCALTuesday 23 February 2016

Another Treasure of Aruba’s Beaches: Sea Glass!

ARASHI - It is hard to imag- amount of garbage in the change into treasures! great souvenirs. You can
ine this happening today, water, creating millions of Everybody knows that you place them in a wine glass
but years ago people beautiful smooth rocks. are not allowed to take or large bottle for decora-
dumped all kinds of refuse local shells home, but the tion and every time you
straight into the ocean, in- It’s hard to believe the people working at the air- look at it a smile will light up
cluding old cars, and their short-sighted mistakes we port have no problem you your face thinking back of
household garbage, which were making that could taking sea glass home. A your unforgettable Aruba
of course included lots of have potentially ruined few of those pieces make vacation!q
glass. these beautiful beaches.
Over the next 30 years the But thanks to natural pro- side of the island. Make it a
pounding waves cleaned cesses, the ocean trans- fun family day!
the beach, by breaking formed the trash into the Even if we didn’t mean to
down everything but glass sea glass. pollute the Beaches how
and pottery. Each colored gem on the
The pounding waves beach has its own story. we did, it is inspiring to see
washed the trash up and The ruby red glass stones just how the earth can cor-
down, back and forth. are typically from old car rect our mistakes.
Tons of polished, broken tail-lights. Funny, how trash can
glass pieces were created Then, the sapphire rocks
by the pounding surf. are the remnants of bro-
These smoothened, col- ken apothecary bottles.
ored glass particles then The most common and
settled along the sea shore the easiest to find are the
in millions, and that is why brown (Amstel & Polar
you can find these beauti- beer), green (Heineken
ful and colorful pieces on & Balashi beer) and clear
the north shore beaches glass which are the soft
of Aruba. Especially on
the strip on white sand be- much loved “soft drink”
tween the famous Natural bottles.
Bridge” and the huge red If you like to see the sea
anchor close to “Grape- glass for yourself, and be
field” beach you will be
able to find your own piec- in awe of the power of
es of sea glass. nature, rent a car or jeep
The sea glass that was and go explore our desert-
created is the product of ed beaches on the north
a very long and interest-
ing process. It can take
anywhere from 10 to 30
years to make sea glass.
The name for any piece
of glass that finds its way
to the ocean and tumbles
around in the water long
enough is “Sea glass. The
colorful pieces of glass are
being used for decoration,
handcrafts and jewelry!
Once glass makes its way
into the ocean, the glass is
broken up into shards and
is tumbled around in the
water, where sand and
other rocks act like sand-
paper to smooth out its
rough edges.
Sometimes as the sea glass
is passed through fire, it be-
comes fire glass, the rarest
of sea glass with certain
inclusions, just like precious
gems.
For years, the water beat
against the different kinds
of trash being dumped.
Glass, household appli-
ances and even motor
parts were discarded on
the beach. The waves and
weather conditions wore
down the overwhelming