FOLAR Clean Up

Hello, my name is Jared Aguila I am currently taking English 2030 for Professor Hernandez. On April 22, 2017, I got the opportunity to take part in the L.A river clean-up with the organization FOLAR(Friends Of the Los Angeles River). This was my first clean-up event before that day I had never volunteered to clean-up anything besides my room. A surprising factor in the river clean-up was the number of volunteers that showed up, when I first arrived it was 8:20 am and there were no more than 20 people but by 8:55 am the number of volunteers more than tripled. With so many people helping out I felt that maybe we could have a significant impact in the clean-up, that was until I saw the amount of trash. I wasn't expecting a lot of trash maybe a plastic bag here and there but that was it. To my astonishment the day of the clean-up the river proved to be more than a bit dirty, there were items of clothes, numerous plastic bags, and several bike parts along with a few shopping carts. I think if we spent more time in the river we could have found all the parts necessary to make a bike. While cleaning up I had found part of a weight as long as some bike parts, my friends found a broken piece of glass and a knife that appeared to be used for eating. During the clean-up, I was surprised that I didn't find many items related to drugs or alcohol just clothes. The day of the clean-up the sky was clear and the sun was blasting making the clean-up a bit difficult but was able to manage through it. As a person who has lived most of his life in Souther California it never really hit my mind that we had a problem with pollution, I mean sure some streets of L.A are filled with trash but the city would deal with that right, and I knew a bunch of people who lived on recycling so I figured the city wasn't that messed up. Cleaning up the river made me realize that the problem does exist and that as the days pass by the problem gets worse and worse yet people don't seem to care at all. I hope that sooner or later people accept the fact that there is a pollution problem and that when that happens people will be hitting the streets to do their part. We as humans need to take care of the planet we live in because unlike test there is no retake. It is thanks to all the reading that I have found ways to help preserve the environment and has also given me more info on pollution.

Dirty clothes wrapping around a tree

Not sure who did this but it caught my attention there were various