LA River Clean Up

Hi everyone, my name is Asef Ali. I am a freshman at Cal State Los Angeles. Currently, this quarter I am taking English-101 with Professor Hernandez. Recently, I have volunteered at an activity on cleaning the Los Angeles River. Honestly, I love to participate in such kind of activities where I have the chance to participate and help the community by making a difference. So, from the beginning when Ms. Hernandez mentioned about the LA River Clean Up; I was excited about the event. As we all know that LA River is one of the Historic- Cultural Monuments in the city of Los Angeles but going there on my first visit disappointed me and it was rather quite unpredictable. By exploring the river closely, I have noticed that the River was filled with a lot of trash or garbage.

While cleaning up the river, I found many disposable plastics, soda cans, cigarettes and so on. I understand the fact that these things are not thrown directly into the river but instead the water from the rain drags the waste product into the river. So, we have to be careful where we throw the trash. This activity is quite relatable with the Lorax, where Dr.Suess talked about the environmental themes. After the activity, I started to agree with Dr.Suess up to some extend that we people are not understanding our roles and duties when it comes to protecting our environment. But on the other hand, I was pleased to see that there are people who do care about the environment. As people of different age came together to clean the LA River on a Saturday morning. So, basically it all depends on us. If we all start to think the same way and care about our environment we can really make a beneficial change on behave of the environment. In the end, overall it was a great experience for me and I have learned a lot from it.