LA River Clean Up

Hello readers, my name is Hector Linares. I am currently a freshman at California State University of Los Angeles. On Earth Day 2017, April 22nd, I participated in the FoLAR clean up day. Thanks to my English 1005B-82 class with professor Hernandez, I visited the LA river for the first time. I recognized the issues we have been discussing throughout this semester and the last semester. For example the amount of trash that is going to the ocean. Looking back at the essay by Jenny Price about the LA river confirmed to me that nature does exist in the LA river. I saw trees, waters streams and flowers trying to survive, even though the Army Corp. of Engineers decided to cement most of it nature is constantly trying to bloom in its natural habitat. Although there is nature, our city has not really been responsible on trying to keep it clean. Throughout the clean up I encountered all types of trash, aluminum cans, cloth, plastic bags and plastics containers. The most popular type of trash was the plastic products. As I picked up all the plastic I thought about the amount of polymer products that end up in the ocean. I also thought of the potential harm all these bags could have done to the healthy sea life that remains. The picture on the right is small potion of the amount of trash that was collected during the hours of clean up. Most of which were plastic products. On the picture to right, I took I found it interesting that corn has been planted in some areas. You might be wondering as of why corn is planted in the middle of a river, but it is certain plants have the ability to clear toxins from the ground. Corn is one. The process is called Phytoremediation.