Trash in the Los Angeles River: Water We Doing Wrong?

As the great philosopher of this generation, Katy Perry, once inquired, "Do you ever feel / like a plastic bag / drifting through the wind / wanting to start again?" After pondering this philosophical question, if you feel like you agree, you may not want to go near the Los Angeles River. There's already too many plastic bags there already.

Going into the FOLAR event, I didn't exactly know what to expect-- but it definitely was not what I saw. I've been to a clean-up before, but it was not nearly as littered with trash as the LA River was last Saturday. Of course there was the typical litter everywhere: chip bags, bottle caps, scraps of paper all around the dirt and rocks. Even weird items that would actually make you laugh when you find them were scattered around, like a full-sized rug or a Scooby-Doo toy. But don't get me wrong, the filth was absolutely disgusting; at some point I even found a used (albeit washed by the river, at least) condom among the rocks. Fun.

Pollution in the River was so bad that the waste became intertwined with the nature. Countless strands of police tape, ripped clothes, and plastic bags twisting around the branches of the foliage, dancing with the wind, pretending they were leaves themselves. At one point I found a shopping cart joined almost symbiotically with a bush such that not only the branches, but also the actual roots of the bush grew in and out of the gaps of the cart, making it impossible to remove it without hurting the plant.

The River was so heavily polluted that after the event was over, I completely changed how I viewed plastic bags. Growing up, we always saved plastic bags to reuse them, and I thought this act in and of itself was just fine. However, after this event, I've come to learn that I absolutely despise plastic bags. Attempting to pick up a half-buried-in-the-sand plastic bag is an absolutely fruitless effort. Once you grab a piece, the bag will tear, giving you only a fraction of what you originally planned to pick up. Now, after this event, I refuse to use a plastic bag whenever avoidable.

As much as I wish I could tell you that the FOLAR event reversed the state of the LA River and give you a handshake or a high-five-- and trust me, I do wish this were the case-- it would simply be dishonest. Even though the River is still trash-ridden after the event, I'm glad that I had the opportunity to participate in cleaning it up. I realize now, how much I take this aspect of my life for granted. Every piece of plastic I throw away. Every recyclable I toss in the trash rather than the recycle bin. I don't take the time to consider where my trash goes or what effects it has. I wish I could single-handedly fix this pollution issue. And in a sense I can... Sort of. After being a part of the FOLAR event, I'm working on how to fix the way I treat my trash-disposal, and plan to volunteer again in the future. Given how many people I saw giving their time and effort into cleaning up a river that many Los Angeles citizens don't know exists makes me a lot more hopeful that through effort and dedication, this issue is one that will be given the attention it deserves and be changed for the better.

Sand Gets Everywhere, But So Does Trash

Somewhere between the beginning of the HNRS 1200 course and the first week of April, I forgot exactly when we would attend the very much discussed FOLAR clean-up event. I had my heart set on potentially attending the March for Science and somehow managed to consistently disregard both the date set on the syllabus for the clean-up and the proposed date for the March for Science. And so it happened that sometime during the beginning of April, I realized that one of the two would have to go. Given that the two events fell on Earth Day, it made sense to me that I should pick the one that would allow me to more actively help the environment. I prepared for the event with great excitement, though a little nervous for what was to come and rather unsure of what to expect.

Upon arriving, the site was nothing like what I had expected. I thought that the area would be more green, but the shrubbery was incredibly underwhelming. What welcomed me instead was dry dirt and sand, plenty of which was kicked up into the air as we walked around. Nor was the river quite as small as I thought it would be prior to the event. Looking down at the river, my fear of heights kicked in and I nearly resigned myself to a fate of picking up the trash along the path while my friends had fun picking up trash together before I finally figured out a way to slowly make my way down to the river. I picked up trash with as much enthusiasm as anyone there--well, I tried to. It definitely did not help that so many pieces of trash were stuck deep in the sand and that the plastic bags caught in the bushes broke off easily, but I gave it my best effort.

After two long hours of navigating unsteady rocks, picking up trash with my friends, and avoiding the occasional wasp, it was finally time to leave. I felt relieved to be out of the hot sun, but that's not to say that I didn't enjoy cleaning up the river. In spite of some of the difficulties I encountered, the clean-up was actually quite fun, and it was exhilarating just knowing that I was doing something to directly contribute to a much larger effort to save our river, rather than simply marching. Lungs full of dust, I headed home, exhausted but feeling good about doing something to make the L.A. River just a little cleaner.

Earth Day

Although I was unable to participate in the river clean up on Earth day, I did contribute by running a promotion at my work. I work at Starbucks, and realizing that we are, unfortunately, one of the contributors to littering due to our cups ending up on the side of the road instead of trashcans, we gave out reusable cups to celebrate Earth day.
It is always so disappointing to see Starbucks cups or straw wrappers on the side of the road. It is even more disappointing because as a company, Starbucks takes great responsibility at ethically using resources. This is why our cup sleeves and napkins are made out of recycled material. Knowing that my work does their part to minimize waste is very satisfying. Also satisfying was being able to give out the cups to our customers, and even more so when they bring their cups back to use.

FOLAR clean-up

I went into this river clean-up expecting one thing and found another.
I thought that I was going to be going to one of the more nature part of the L.A. river to clean up the bed of the river where the water meets the dirt, or to go pick up trash on a nice scenic walkway that runs parallel to the river with lots of people and bikers on the trail... This was not what I walked into.
I went to a less nature area of the river where there was hardly any water in the river at all. I was not expecting to be able to literally walk in the river, it was very sandy.
Despite the change in expectation of location I enjoy the FOLAR river clean-up. It was a great experience that I am glad I was able to participate in.
There were a lot more people there than I expected to be, and quite a large range in age that I was definitely not expecting, there was even a baby strapped to its father's chest.
The actually cleaning of the river was a very dusty job due to the amount of sand from the lack of water in the river. Good thing I wore my black shoes :). A lot of the trash was actually embedded into the river, which I was not expecting. I expected a lot of the trash to be laid out on top as if someone had just thrown the trash there. The embedded trash cause for a lot of digging and pulling to get the trash. I was quite shocked at some of the items found, for example I never would guess that a shopping cart would be buried into the river, thrown on the side next to the river sure, but not buried in it. Or pieces to a computer of car charger. When I think of trash inn a river these pieces are not what comes to my mind. Which makes it quiet shocking and sad to me that people just throw this stuff on the place we live on.
Overall this experiencing was great and unexpected. It was unexpected in the location, the people there and the trash that was found.

Pizza

Before the 22nd, I'd never gone to any sort of clean-up ever. I'd done other volunteer work (at a daycare with two- to five-year-old children), but I'd never done something like this. Like everyone else, I expected the trash to be simply lying along the edge of the river. I definitely didn't expect the trash to be embedded within the dirt and mud at the edge of the river and in the bushes, as much of a part of the landscape as the river itself. This made picking up trash much more difficult than I thought it would be. Picking up a piece of trash meant having to dig into the dirt or untangle it from a branch. At one point, we found a huge blanket that we had to pull from under the dirt. It was probably the hardest workout of my life. It didn't help that it was a hot day.

Though picking up trash certainly wasn't easy, it wasn't miserable. In fact, it was pretty fun. I enjoyed doing something good and spending time with friends. The free shirts were certainly a plus. The highlight of my day, however, was seeing a slice of cheese pizza floating in the river, following the current. I don't know how that pizza got there, but seeing it float like a boat sure made my day.

FOLAR clean up

I was not expecting an experience that I actually got when I participated in FOLAR. I was very excited to help clean up the LA river by participating in this event. When I heard that we were going to be at a pretty and more nature oriented location, what I imagined was not the reality of it. I pictured an area where there was no cement incline leading into the river, where the water met the bank of the river, and there was perhaps a grove of trees that ran along the river bank. I don't know if a place like this exists for the LA river, but if it does, it was not what we went to. Another surprise for me was the fact that I had to dig to pick up trash. I was expecting to walk along the river bank that I had imagined and pick up plastic bags, water bottles, water bottle lids, and general trash like that. I couldn't have been more wrong. What I got was a mission to dig up cables, plastic, software, shopping carts, and the list goes on. While the experience was nothing that I imagined it to be, I did enjoy myself and loved the fact that I was helping clean u the environment and save some animals from a horrible death.

Cleaning the Forgotten River

On April 22nd, I attended a FOLAR cleanup along with my HNRS 1200 class; there was a huge group of people, and a huge amount of trash. Although the L.A. river is an integral part of the city in terms of its significance to the management of floodwater and irrigation, the various species of birds, fish, and other animals that it sustains (or has the capacity to sustain, were it not so polluted), and its significance to the history and continuously evolving culture of the city, it is often forgotten or thought of as a completely man-made entity, to be treated with the same regard as any other sewer pipe running underneath the city. Walking across the sandy banks of the river, I noticed that most of the debris in the river was not large pieces of trash, or even things like syringes or knives or other such objects that a person might want to get rid of discreetly; there was a large range of types, age, and size of trash; the only real constant was the amount of discarded material that was uniformly integrated with the natural space.

Before attending the cleanup, our class read a paper by Adam Davis entitled "What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Civic Service," which cautioned against performing civic service or engaging in service learning without undertaking sufficient reflection on motivation. It discussed the dangers of jumping into actions with the potential for continuing effects on a social environment without contemplating how one's motive will shape those effects. The lack of intention behind action, the lack of reflection on plans before they are implemented, is what led to a large amount of the trash the FOLAR group encountered ending up in the river in the first place; in the past, I had approached civic service (and particularly environmentally oriented campaigns like FOLAR's) thinking that the best thing I could do -- and indeed, the best thing to be done -- was to increase efforts to clean up trash, increase participation in civic service. I realize after participating in the FOLAR cleanup that an equally if not more important way to approach these large-scale environmental and civic problems is to promote large-scale awareness and reflection.