In case you’d somehow managed to get this far without realizing it: humans make a lot of trash. As a species, we’re really good at discarding things. So, perhaps it’s no wonder that our ability to throw crap away has become a point of celebration at certain spots throughout the globe. From a joint in Brooklyn to a terra cotta graveyard in Italy, mankind has finally begun to celebrate the trash we’ve left behind.
If you’re in the mood to hunt for vintage bottles or sift through hundred-year-old garbage, Dead Horse Bay in Brooklyn is your stop. In Virginia Beach, they converted an old landfill into a sprawling public park called Mount Trashmore. Glass Beach in Fort Bragg, California is home to hundreds of glass shards that have been rounded into jewels by the ocean tide. Perhaps more beautiful than any of those is Rome’s Monte Testaccio, a graveyard for terra cotta pots that has bloomed verdant in the hundreds of years since it was initiated.
Throughout the world, in Argentina, Paris, California, and beyond, people have been using the left behind detritus of our society and repurposing it to something more beautiful. Sure, it might be junk but you know the old saying about one man’s junk …
