L.A. River Clean Up

       My name is Monica Campos and I am in the english class of Professor Hernandez. This saturday was not a normal saturday for me instead of waking up late I decided to go down to the L.A. river and clean it up with my fellow classmates and the people from FOLAR. When I arrived at the L.A. river I was not expecting there to be any trees or rocks instead I thought it was only go to be cement, but once I saw what we were going to clean I was shocked. I have lived in L.A. my whole life and I have never seen trees in the river before. Even though the weather was hot I was curious to see what was in the river and how it looked inside all the trees.

   When me and my classmates went down to the river to start cleaning it up I was suprised because it was very polluted. There were a lot of plastic bags that were entangled in the branches of the trees as well as chip bags, aluminum cans, and food wrappers. It was sad to see how much trash there was but cleaning it up made me feel better. I never realized how much plastic people wasted and threw away. Plastic really damages places like the river because the birds can think it is food and eat it. People should reuse their plastic bags instead of throwing them away or find an alternative. This will help to keep animals safe and alive.

   

Cleaning up the river was a good experince because it made me realize that we need to preserve the wild life that is in Los Angeles and keep it clean. Picking up trash on a saturday was something I was not really looking foward to but in the end I had a good time and learned to always clean up trash and help the enviornment stay clean. Even though this was for english I am glad we did it. This activity made me understand how important the enviornment is and also how it relates to what we are learning in class about the enviornment. It is related to my class by the readings we are assigned as well as the novel No Impact Man which involves a man and his family living a year without damaging the environment in any way for a year while living in New York. I am glad to say that I was a part of something that will help benifit the river of Los Angeles and keep it clean.