A Rising Sea and the Toxic Tides That Could Be Unleashed

An aerial view of the Port of Los Angeles. Photos by Jeremy Lindenfeld for Capital & Main. Flight courtesy of LightHawk Conservation.

At SA Recycling Terminal Island, a worker using a crane builds a 20-foot-high mountain of crushed trucks, buses and cars. They will get fed into a megashredder and “torn to nothing in a matter of seconds,” says David Brown, general manager of the steel recycling plant at the Port of Los Angeles. The scrap metal is one of the port’s most valuable exports.