FOLAR: LA, A cleaner river

one of the piles of trash collected 

Pile #2

Hi, my name is Ana Nicolas, a freshman student at Cal State Los Angeles. I participated along with my English class on April 22, 2017. We participated in the FOLAR LA river clean up. I had seen the LA river from afar before, but never so close up. This was my first experience cleaning up for Los Angeles.  My expectancies of how I thought the river might look like were different from how it actually was. I was shocked to see how bad the river was. The trash bags in the river had been out for long, exposed to the sun to the point they would disintegrate if we pulled them. There was a lot of cloth and shopping carts, as well as plastics and other things like metals and electrical things. Some of the bags had to be dug out and they had a lot of dirt inside them. for a fact I knew that there was also more trash under the dirt. Trees had many plastic bags and cloth stuck on them. it was really sad to see not only where our trash goes, but where it stays. the trash that we litter our that ends up in the streets in front of our house eventually gets to the LA river. It was nice to see the green color in the trees that showed life due to recent rains, but heart breaking for the trash that was visible in the trees, on the ground, and on the river. there were parts of the river where the water was just dirty. It had a dark green color, oily black and one that had a light brown looking like color. Some parts didn't smell so nice and it was due to the water that had been sitting there for long. Over all the experience was shocking and, interesting and definitely something I will think about more. Because it wasn't just about cleaning the LA river but also about taking care of the nature that is left still. This was an adventure and lesson for me and for others as well. To be more loving and caring for others and our world.

Our bags 

The river, what a view......!!!!

part of the river where the water was oily black, dark green and light brown