Heal the Bay @ Dockweiler Beach cleanup

         My name is Stephanie Gutierrez and today, October 12, 2014, my class and I participated in the Heal the Bay cleanup at Dockweiler beach. Not only have I never been to this beach but I've never even heard of it so I was quite curious in how the morning would play out. After having a little bit of trouble trying to find the beach, my friend, Alicia, and I found Dockweiler beach and immediately thought that this beach was just like an ordinary beach. Soon after meeting up with the CSULA group, Alicia and I formed a group with three other girls and started to wander the beach and look for any signs of trash. Wasn't that hard to find. While we were picking up little pieces of trash and sometimes, heavy pieces, I started to think, "Are all beaches this dirty?" I mean, I've been to Santa Monica, Venice and Huntington beach and sure they all have their own bits of trash, but I just never thought it was that big of a deal cause the amount of effort to pick it up is so small. While searching the beach, we picked up a variety of different wastes, such as cigarette butts, candy wrappers, pieces of plastic, a pair of socks, shoes, and large pieces of charcoal. And some more plastic. And cigarette butts. I never really noticed, or took the time to notice how much waste is on our beaches but also how little people care about it. It's not going to stop because we don't care enough to realize what we're actually doing to nature around us. We all need to start caring just a little bit more and maybe our environment won't be so polluted and dirty. I'm glad to say Dockweiler opened my eyes a bit more to see the real problem and I'll continue to try and find the solution.