A short and sweet story about a young girl, her nana & beach glass - A beachside treasure that truly encompasses the beauty of recycling.
I can still remember, the glass bowl filled with blue, white and green treasures. If I went on my tippy toes I could see the whole bowl in all its glory, and if I was lucky Nana would bring it down off its shelf so her and I could sort through it. Stories of where it must have come from - A bottle of rum off a pirate ship, or perhaps a broken message in a bottle. The smooth, aqua toned and somewhat sparkling pieces of glass all told a story and I loved dreaming up my own. Nana would walk the beach each morning in Takapuna, picking up the beautiful pieces of recycled glass - I was told that the blue colour's were very rare.
What used to impress me the most, was how smooth and silky each shard was - being used to the broken glass that my Mum would quickly vacuum up before any barefoot bandits could get their toes into it... this glass seemed like magic to me. It was explained that the glass got its smooth finish from the ocean waves and sand, the sand would act as sandpaper smoothing out the rough edges on the glass & the ocean would wash it back and forth leaving a silky smooth finish on each piece. I now understand this as a wonderful form of recycling carried out by the ocean.. turning a once dangerous piece of litter, into a lovely piece of treasure!
That is why when I came across a company selling Moroccan Glassware, made from broken shards of glass and repurposed into beautiful drink ware - I knew we had to add this to our collection. We are super lucky to have a collection of hand - blown glassware from the (recently) very last glass factory in Morocco, that is still making hand-blown glasses. This factory was saved from permanent closure and the skilled artisans now continue to make simple & traditional tea glasses and bowls. Made from recycled glass, collected from the local seaside (such as wine bottles) and repurposed into stunning glassware.
The point of sharing this story with you all? Well I think that these two instances (a young girls beachside treasure shared with her Nana & a hand - blown glass factory using recycled glass) encompass the same beautiful mission - to recycle is more than to pop your cardboard in the green bin each week. First and foremost, to recycle is to repurpose what you have, turn something old into something new... if the ocean can do it, then we can too!
