River Clean Up Service Project

Over the past weekend, a group of Saratoga students went to the San Tomas Aquino creek and picked up trash. We worked in pairs with a trash and recycling bag to sort the things we found and grabbers to help us pick them up. Carolyn and I spent the majority of our time in one area with a lot of tangled bushes where chip bags, plastic bags, and junk food wrappers were trapped. Being cautious of the poison oak that was around, we used our grabbers and reached into those hard-to-reach spots and removed all the liter. It was sad to see how much trash (from humans!!) laid around near the park, and it made me want to spend the whole day there picking every piece of plastic I saw. Unfortunately, the three hour cleanup was cut down to a mere 45 minutes and we did not get to spend too much time moving around to another area and look for trash. Here's some pictures of the nasty human liter we found stuck in bushes and buried near the creek:

 Overall, this experience reminded me of how much we harm the environment and should find it part of our duty to give back by trashing responsibly and always keep in mind how each piece of consumption we invest in goes to the environment somehow. In the future, I want to participate in a longer cleanup session and possibly organize my own clean up with some friends in different areas. Each time I picked up a piece of trash, it felt satisfying to remove the pollution that harms the creatures that live near the creek and was just a nice Saturday morning activity to participate in. I hope this organization continues to remind people like me that our environment is precious and we should do everything in our power to treat it well.