LA River Clean-Up

Hello, everyone my name is Kevin Vega. I am a second year attending at California State University Los Angeles. On April 22, 2017, I participated in a clean-up held by an organization called FOLAR. The event took place at the Los Angeles River where my English 2030 class went to a clean-up at the river to keep our cities clean from pollution. This event was my first FOLAR Clean-Up I attended, and it was a great experience helping out my community to keep our river clean. I have biked it around the river lot of times with friends, and I never thought that the river would have some much trash. During the clean-up, I didn't expect to see some much trash such as a shopping cart, clothes, wires, plastics, phones, etc. My professor said that someone found a 100 dollar bill in the river. Who knows what else is burn in the river beside the trash we found on Earth Day. It sucks that most of LA's dirty water ends up in the river. In the future, the city of Los Angeles has a proposal about a revitalization of the Los Angeles River. This master plan would take about 20 years to complete. Hopefully one day, people could visit the river without seeing any trash but fishes, the beautiful waters and the parks around the area. The LA river doesn't even look like a river, but hopefully, this master plan would revive the river again. During the clean-up, we see some much trash. Most of the garbage I found was plastic bags and clothes. The sad part of the day was that it was hot to clean the river. The trash in the river has been there for years or more. The trash was burned deep in the sand, and the plastic bag was in stuck in the trees and plants. I enjoy seeing other people clean-up the river because I enjoy biking around the river because it is peaceful and nice to bike with my friends.

The wire suck in the dirt

The best thing like about the community service project was the amount of work put into cleaning the river. It wasn't only our group cleaning, but other organizations were cleaning the river. We only cleaned a section of the River while other groups cleaned another part of the river. The cool part was that my friends and I found a broken shopping cart and we added a seat to it.

We fill up about six trash bags. I never thought that there would be some much trash in one section of the Los Angeles River. It was surprising seeing so many people care so much about the environment to take time out of their days to clean up the river and rather not go to work. People would spend the day cleaning the river rather than goes to the beach or the park to enjoy their day. It was a great experience to be part of the FOLAR Los Angles clean-up event at the LA river. I would recommend everyone to go because you will meet new people and enjoy your day helping mother nature.