LA River Clean Up On Earth Day

          Hello my name is Kevin Perez; I am currently going to Cal State Los Angeles University taking ENGL 1005B with Professor Ximena Hernandez. For the first time I was able to participate on the LA River clean up. It was a really nice experience, and the first time to step on the LA River. There I was able to see a problem; the natural environment was all covered with trash. I didn’t think that the LA would have nature like this river, which seems to be home for species such as birds, ducks, fish, and frogs. Due to the accumulation of trash, most trees were covered with plastic bags. Once I got there I knew there was a lot to clean, as I was picking up the trash I realized two things. One due to the tons of trash there no that many animals lived in the River, the first animal I saw was a female duck, the water was not that clean, but I was able to see a couple tiny fishes. Furthermore, later on I realized that there was a lot of nature in LA, but man did not care about taking care the environment, to the point where almost everywhere was contaminated. Also, one of the things that cough my attention was to see things like a shopping carts, car parts, rubber and pieces of metal all around the river. As I continued cleaning up, I found a huge frog, he was underwater and by himself just like the duck, alone with no other similar species. These two animals made think that people have destructed their home, a natural environment where many species disappeared because of trash and contamination. Also, I found different types of trees, one of them was full of fruit which were food for the animals around there. Another thing that caught my attention was the crops of corn that were planted to reduce pollution. The best part of this clean up in the LA River was that many people were actually participating, there were people cleaning up from different ages, even kids were all around collecting trash. It seems that people need to be more conscious that we are responsible of polluting the environment killing many species. So, we need to work hard in order to reverse it and save not only the river but the environment and many species living there. Overall it was a really nice experience, I feel glad that I was able to help clean the river, and reduce trash in the environment.