# What is Beach Glass? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 21, 2006, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-beach-glass/349293 "2006-03-21T15:38:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-beach-glass/349293/1 "2006-03-21T15:38:27Z")
I was watching _Spanglish_, and there’s a scene where Adam Sandler’s character sends some kids out to the beach to scour for beach glass. He offers $5 per piece; all but one of the kids is ambivalent about it, and the other kid finds 120 pieces and earns $600. A wikipedia and [dictionary.com](http://dictionary.com) search failed to turn up conclusive results, and a google search pointed me to several artisans and merchants who use it, but no description of how it is formed, its value, etc. So, how is beach glass formed? Is it pretty abundant on America’s beaches, or is it pretty rare? How much is it worth? Also, I’ve been to several beaches in my life and I’ve never seen a piece. Does it only show up in certain parts of the world? ---
**Author:** ![Electronic\_Chaos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Electronic\_Chaos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Electronic_Chaos)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-beach-glass/349293/2 "2006-03-21T15:53:21Z")
Not sure if this is what they mean by it, but one time when walking along the beach, we found a spot in the sand that had been struck by lightning. The result was a rather interesting looking peice of glass. I’m not sure what happend to it, sadly. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-beach-glass/349293/3 "2006-03-21T15:53:38Z")
We used the term to refer to what was essentially broken glass that has been on the beach or in the water. The action of the sand and waves would give the glass a translucent white appearance in addition to the native color.; it was also rounded down so that there were no sharp edges. The glass was quite pretty, the type of things a kid would pick up as a pretty stone. Coke bottles made especially good-looking beach glass. I’d guess it is harder to find these days as soft drink bottles are usually plastic, and people are a bit more better about recycling. It’d probably be easy enough to make yourself: put some broken bottles in a rock tumbler along with some rocks. ---
**Author:** ![Sal\_Ammoniac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8dc957/32.png) [@Sal\_Ammoniac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sal_Ammoniac)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-beach-glass/349293/4 "2006-03-21T15:57:03Z")
Beach glass has a certain cachet, and people use it to make stuff – jewelry and whatnot. You can find it anywhere that people have been throwing glass into the sea. Places that used to have offshore garbage dumps yield more beach glass than, say, Patagonia. New England seems to have a fair amount of beach glass. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-beach-glass/349293/5 "2006-03-21T16:00:06Z")
My understanding is the same as **reality Chuck** ’s. There’s a surprising amount of bottle glass and the like tossed back by the sea near where we go. The action of waves rolling it on the beaches grinds off the rough and sharp edes. Unless it’s relatively recent, it also gives it a translucent appearance, since the smooth sides get knocked around as well. The phenomenon **Electronic Chaos** describes is called a _fulgurite_, the result of lightning fusing sand grains together into a glassy branch-like structure. These can be impressively large (one at the Boston Museum is something like 4 feet long). The “branches” are hollow and glossy smooth inside. More generally, since the structure is very thin, it breaks down into chunks a couiple of inches long. I have several such pieces. I’ve never heard them called “beach glass”, though. ---
**Author:** ![sunfish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/96bed5/32.png) [@sunfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sunfish)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-beach-glass/349293/6 "2006-03-21T16:47:54Z")
These days of course it’s also [manufactured](http://www.kptiles.com/seaglass.html) because the demand for decorative uses has gotten sufficiently high. I’ve bought some from Bed, Bath & Beyond to use as decorative fill in a clear glass vase, myself. ---
**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-beach-glass/349293/7 "2006-03-21T17:48:26Z")
Five bucks a piece? Those kids should high-tail it to Pottery Barn and buy the Bag-O-Glass for twelve bucks and scatter the contained couple hundred pieces on the beach so they can “find” them. Funny this should come up as I bought a bag of that stuff two days ago. The bag somehow fell to the floor at checkout and the cashier was apologetic. I said “Eh, it’s already broken!” ---
**Author:** ![cmurdough](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@cmurdough](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmurdough)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-beach-glass/349293/8 "2006-03-21T19:28:24Z")
We used to call it sea glass, even if we found it on the shores of Lake Michigan. ---
**Author:** ![Thirty-Nine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f0a364/32.png) [@Thirty-Nine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thirty-Nine)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2006, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-beach-glass/349293/9 "2006-03-22T00:21:30Z")
The texture of the beach glass I’ve seen is similar to that of ‘frosted’ glass. The translucency and colouring distinguishes it from the other pebbles. Cadgwith Cove in Cornwall, England has a lot of it for some reason.