FOLAR Los Angeles River clean up

Hello, my name is Alexis Vega and I am currently enrolled in English 1005B with Ximena Hernandez. On Saturday April 22nd, I participated in FOLAR's Los Angeles River clean up. I arrived promptly at 9:00am ready to begin cleaning and eager to spot different types of trash at the location. I was curious as to what I would find and how it got there. When I first began to clean up I spotted a lot of plastic along the side of the river as well as several plastic stuck on some trees. There was also a lot of homeless individuals who have set up tents in order to sleep there at night. I came to the conclusion that some of the trash was a result of the fact that they were living there. I noticed that they have hoarded a lot of unnecessary objects near where they have been sleeping. For example, I noticed that they had piles of trash right next to where they were sleeping. it consisted of old bikes and containers and other objects that seemed like they were no longer put to use but still taking up space. As I continued my journey along the river, I stumbled upon more trash that I expected to see which was popular items for example, fast food wrappers, empty chip bags, soda cans, and candy wrappers. It made think of how all that trash ended up here, a lot of the times there are individuals who simply dump trash here because they are too lazy to find a near trash can so they just toss it at the river. What they don't realize is that it ends up staying at the river and when it rains it travels all throughout the river either getting stuck on trees and bushes or it ends up going to the ocean. When the trash from the river reaches the ocean it can be very detrimental because fishes can consume the trash and then some of the fish that they catch contain plastic, if we consume that same fish it can be very unhealthy. Coming to this Los Angeles clean up really opened my eyes and made me realize how we should take more time and effort  to help the environment. If we want the environment to better itself we all need to help together to see a difference. If we all help remove trash from the LA River it can become a really great environment for children and adults to do a lot of fun activities. One step at a time we can really make a change that will benefit all of us for the better.