L.A. River Clean-up

Hello my name is Denise Melgar, I am a freshman college student in Cal state la, and I am currently taking English 1005B with Professor Ximena Hernandez. My class and I had the opportunity to go to the L.A. river on April 22, 2017 and clean up the trash with my classmates. When I got to the L.A. river, I could clearly see the trash hanging on the trees and there was also dirty old clothes hanging. I picked up a lot of plastic pieces and plastic bags that were filled with sand and with more trash inside the bags. I picked up a lot of plastic bottles as well near the river and it reminded me of the book No Impact Man by Colin Beavan on Chapter 9 where he explains about him going to the river and cleaning up the trash with his friend. Beaven explains that the reason why there was trash there was because people carelessly throw their trash away from their car window without thinking how harmful that is to nature. It is unethical to be throwing trash and not caring what the consequences are and also not caring about the well-being of Nature. I am happy that I got the chance to go to the L.A. river clean up and make a difference and I would definitely go back and help again.

FOLAR Clean Up

Hello, my name is Jared Aguila I am currently taking English 2030 for Professor Hernandez. On April 22, 2017, I got the opportunity to take part in the L.A river clean-up with the organization FOLAR(Friends Of the Los Angeles River). This was my first clean-up event before that day I had never volunteered to clean-up anything besides my room. A surprising factor in the river clean-up was the number of volunteers that showed up, when I first arrived it was 8:20 am and there were no more than 20 people but by 8:55 am the number of volunteers more than tripled. With so many people helping out I felt that maybe we could have a significant impact in the clean-up, that was until I saw the amount of trash. I wasn't expecting a lot of trash maybe a plastic bag here and there but that was it. To my astonishment the day of the clean-up the river proved to be more than a bit dirty, there were items of clothes, numerous plastic bags, and several bike parts along with a few shopping carts. I think if we spent more time in the river we could have found all the parts necessary to make a bike. While cleaning up I had found part of a weight as long as some bike parts, my friends found a broken piece of glass and a knife that appeared to be used for eating. During the clean-up, I was surprised that I didn't find many items related to drugs or alcohol just clothes. The day of the clean-up the sky was clear and the sun was blasting making the clean-up a bit difficult but was able to manage through it. As a person who has lived most of his life in Souther California it never really hit my mind that we had a problem with pollution, I mean sure some streets of L.A are filled with trash but the city would deal with that right, and I knew a bunch of people who lived on recycling so I figured the city wasn't that messed up. Cleaning up the river made me realize that the problem does exist and that as the days pass by the problem gets worse and worse yet people don't seem to care at all. I hope that sooner or later people accept the fact that there is a pollution problem and that when that happens people will be hitting the streets to do their part. We as humans need to take care of the planet we live in because unlike test there is no retake. It is thanks to all the reading that I have found ways to help preserve the environment and has also given me more info on pollution.

Dirty clothes wrapping around a tree

Not sure who did this but it caught my attention there were various 

FOLAR Event

Hi, my name is Alejandra Padilla and I am in Mrs. Hernandez's 1005B English class. Before going to the LA River Clean-up meant two things for me, one; just another assignment that needs to be done, and two; to take part on helping the environment. April 22, 2017 was the day of the clean-up and I couldn’t believe that it was worse than what I anticipated, there is so much trash. I have never seen a river like this before because I am from Northern California, the difference between these two regions are very distinguishable. The north takes care of its nature because it is essential for the whole state of California for our survival, North California is where the water is transported to the South. All this time, I thought that LA should have plenty of water to support itself because it also has a large river, but now I know why it can’t. When I got the cleaning sight, I was surprised that there was more volunteers, I thought that I was going to be just Mrs. Hernandez classes and some of the people from the FOLAR organization. But, it turned out that there was a lot of volunteers, it looked like it was a community gathering event. I also saw little kids helping out, they were on top of a tree trying to take off all of the trash. I thought that it was good that the parents take their children to these events so that the kids can learn nature values, instead of being ignorant or pretend that nothing bad is being done to the Earth. I literally only took one picture because you basically understand how bad it was. There was a tire under all that dirt, god knows how long that has been there. Toward the end of our event, I saw two people singing country music, the women was playing the double bass and the man was singing and playing the guitar. I thought that I was nice of them trying to support those people cleaning the river. On the way back home, I realized that it wasn't all that bad, I just don't like the hot weather. It made me feel good that I took action to something I really care about. I would do this again.

Hello, my name is Becky Noguera, and on Saturday, April 22, 2017 I contributed to the FOLAR River Clean Up. I wad fairly surprised with all the trash that I found walking further and further into the river. I had never seem the river that up close so I never noticed how dirty it actually was. I was only used to seeing the part of the river that crossed through the city of bell. That part of the was mostly concrete unlike the one we went to, this one had actual trees and flowers and sand. When i was approaching the river the first thing that caught my attention were the homeless people camped out on the side. Around the river I saw a lot of market carts which made me realize that the homeless people contributed a lot to the trash seen in the river. There was also a lot of clothes that looked like it had been there for a very long time. I did not expect to see so many people, even children helping in the river clean up. Seeing all those people showed that there are a lot of people who actually do care about the environment, and that is how it should be. This is an activity I would definitely do again.

L.A. River Cleanup!

Salutations, my environmentally-conscious friends!

On the grand morning of Saturday, April 22, 2017 Michael and I traveled many arduous miles through the life-sapping, depression-inducing Los Angeles traffic to take part in the L.A. River cleanup hosted by FOLAR, the Friends of the L.A. River. The experience I had was unlike any other volunteer experience I've had previously. During the event, I picked up numerous objects from bicycle tires to plastic bags, to broken hard drives. I was amazed at all the trash before us. Even two hours into the event, there was still a seemingly endless amount of trash to be removed.

Upon arriving at the L.A. River, one of the first things we noticed was the trees that seemed to be wrapped in plastic. We talked about this being a problem in the past, but evidently, it still is. We spent a good amount of time trying to remove some of the plastic, but we ended up leaving a bit for others. We picked up a number of things in the area under the bridge including a credit card, a bike tire, and some torn clothes.

Moving down the river, we picked up more bike tires, bags, and old clothes and blankets. We also came across miscellaneous bike parts, shopping cart pieces, and various metal parts.

In class, we learned about e-waste, or electronic waste, and its impacts on the environment. A while into picking up trash, I discovered a piece of a hard drive (pictured on the right). This piece of hard drive had a number of non-plastic components still attached to it. Whatever metal was there was sufficiently rusted, and I suspect the chemicals found in hard drives is not entirely environmentally-friendly.

All in all, the experience was quite eye-opening and gave me a chance to witness firsthand the damage that humans are causing to the environment. Though it was hot, and I probably almost sprained an ankle on a number of occasions, I would definitely consider coming back to the Los Angeles River for future cleanup events.

FOLAR Clean Up Event

Hello, my fellow Earthlings!

My name is Michael Angelo Caballero and I participated in FOLAR's L.A. River clean up event on April 22, 2017 which as many of you know was also Earth Day. I attended this event for Professor Hernandez's English 2030 Course. Personally I have never attended a public clean up event such as this one, but I have had my share of trying to save and preserve our Earth, its resources, and its beauty. I have protested against construction of a parking lot and building over a nature center in my own community so when our Professor told us about this event, I was definitely looking forward to it, except for the heat that hit on that weekend. After I received my gloves and bag from FOLAR and step foot onto the riverbed, it reminded me of a more intense version of my local river back home (the San Gabriel River) which I have spent a lot of time roaming with friends in my childhood and current life. The San Gabriel River has its share of trash but nothing compared to the LA River. My classmates and I saw all kinds of different trash ranging from plastic to e-waste to even car parts! We found enough bicycle parts to practically build a whole bicycle from scratch! Something I noticed while we were cleaning up was the fact that trees and vegetation was getting pushed by the river water when the current was strong and tall, and all the trash was getting tangled into those plants and trees, making it nearly impossible to take our every little piece of trash in the vegetation. Trash had clearly become a part of the river, and cleaning some of it up was almost like trying to tear someone's limb off. Even so, you could still find a sense of beauty and art in the river, from the homeless trying everything in their power to survive to multiple cairns I found while cleaning the river. I connected this experience to the documentary we watched in class about plastic in our oceans and the damage it is causing. It made me reflect heavily because I saw so much plastic in the riverbed that would've gone to the ocean.

Cairns in the riverbed

Capturing a view of the riverbed without trash

Reusable bags were found. Ah the irony.

FoLAR: LA River cleanup

Hello, my name is Alan Linan; I'm a student at Calstate LA and I'm enrolled in Professor Hernandez' English 2030 class. As an assignment, we have been given the task of cleaning up the Los Angeles river. Currently, I reside in San Diego county so this was my first encounter with the river. I've never heard good things about the water in this river and the rumors were not too far off. The amount of plastic, among other things,  that was entangled in the foliage was astonishing. What would seem like an easy piece of trash to remove, was actually a piece of trash that was deeply embellished within the plant. The ground had pieces of trash in all over it; it was easy to see how much humans have impacted the ecosystems of this river. I did what I could to take as many pieces of trash and do my part; it didn't take long to fill out the bag trash. In fact, the bag became so heavy that it started to rip open in a matter of minutes. I am happy to say that there were multiple people with us to help clean the river; however, we were not equipped to take out the giant pieces of trash that were located at the river bed. From mattresses to empty shopping carts, the river was littered with macro-pieces of trash that proved difficult to carry out. One thing that stood out to me was the resiliency of mother nature; for, in the  midst all of the trash, I found a bush that was ripe with raspberries. Even when we litter and take advantage of nature, it still has the will to produce its nourishment.