L.A. trash tours

A reality-show-like spin on ecotourism is taking off in the Los Angeles area, as an increasing number of people are opting to take “toxic tours” by bus through neighborhoods characterized by such things as their polluted brownfields and defunct factories.

The free half-day tours, which began in 1994, are hosted by environmental advocacy group Communities for a Better Environment, according to the Los Angeles Times. They explore such places as “the shuttered factories and weed-covered lots of Huntington Park and South Gate” and the Alameda Corridor (pictured), “a below-ground trench through which shipping containers from the nation’s largest port complex in San Pedro and Long Beach head for a massive rail yard.”