Hello!My name is Michelle Benitez, I'm a first year student at Cal State L.A. I'm currently taking English 1005A with professor Hernandez and I am looking forward to an amazing school year.On Saturday, September 17 our class went to Santa Monica beach to a beach cleanup with a nonprofit organization called Heal the Bay.We have been focusing on our environment and what we can do to better it. We were shown the affects and consequences of our lack of recycling. When we arrived we signed in and received a safety talk and shortly after we began cleaning. At first the beach seemed spotless, I was expecting to find full plastic bottles and wrappers but I found the complete opposite. As we looked closer in the sand we noticed smaller pieces of both glass and plastic, one would think that a small piece of plastic won't make a difference but it is the most dangerous for our environment.As explained by Katie Allen, plastic is not biodegradable,meaning it can't turn back to its original form.Also explained was the different types of plastic that will be going into our beaches. Because of the sun, the plastic will be dissolved into a piece the size of a grain of rice making it impossible to clean. We kept finding cigarette buds, we started at five, ten, fifteen and in about an hour we collected well over 200. At first I was shocked but that feeling soon turned into anger because of the lack of education people have about how much damage that can cause to a beautiful beach. I realized that we need to raise more awareness and have a hands on experience because that is the most affective way of learning. Jenny Price, author of "Thirteen Ways of Seeing Nature in L.A" explains to us that we are able to ignore the "topography,climate and hydrology" but we will sooner or later see it in our environment. Im guilty of ignoring and neglecting our beautiful planet but seeing what is going on with our beaches definitely opened my eyes.This was a beautiful experience, I will definitely be doing it again.
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