Well - glass is sort of like quartz crystals, so chemically very similar to actual rocks and stones, but the shape is the key here. Rocks in the mountains are also jagged but are rounded quickly when they enter a creek and a river. Same thing happens with man-made stone like glass (or also concrete or bricks).
I think to me the beauty is in both - in that Nature can turn this kind of trash and make it a part of Nature and that this part then is also very beautiful...

I once saw another beach that was the leftover of an old iron mine. It was full of black sand with white quartz pebbles. The sand was incredibly heavy. It was all leftover iron ore that was sitting there as a beach. It looked very interesting.

Glass is actually mostly silica (SiO2), not quartz. They have a similar chemical composition, but that doesn't make them interchangeable. Silica is more common as sand, which is what eroded glass may eventually produce.

/me is tired of that nitpicking. I could now point out that "sand" is mostly quartz and that "sand" is actually not a compositional term but only refers to size so it could be made of anything and yadda di da. But whatever....

Other than that point (which, yes, is a technicality), it's all an interesting and true point...

a curious & beautiful picture & story :)

Stunning pictures and a nice article, indeed. I posted the link to the Society for Barefoot Living (SBL) mailing list and two barefoot-themed web forums, too.

Wiggling bare toes,

~*Txim Asawl*~