“Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.”-Warren Buffett . LET’S SAVE THE EARTH TOGETHER!

Brassica nigra, more commonly known as black mustard, grew in a six-foot-tall abundance throughout the Canyon Regional Park in North Tustin.

It spreads like wildfire and needed grave uprooting, said Ted Urbanski, OneOC’s Spirit of Volunteerism Awardee and leader of the park’s restoration project leader.

“It took over,” Urbanski said. “It crowded out the natives.”

Every third Sunday of each month, volunteers gather at the northern edge of the park, west of the parking lot, to re-establish the native plants of the region that double as a natural fire suppressant.

The Cal State Fullerton Students Recycle Club joined the event at Peters Canyon Regional Park to help clean up the environment and prevent wildfires.

Black mustard seeds can lay dormant for decades, so restoration cannot involve tilling the land.

This would dig up and activate the seeds, increasing its tendency to proliferate and overcrowd, Urbanski said.

Instead, the volunteers turned mustard into mulch.

On a previous day, the reproductive flowers of the weed were bagged and eradicated.

At the event Sunday, the nonintrusive stems of the weed were hacked into splinters to enrich and insulate the soil, Urbanski said.

The black mustard weed is booed throughout many horticulturalist communities, Jay Matchett, OC Parks volunteer and CSUF alumnus, said.

The natives will soon outnumber, overwhelm and choke out any unwanted vegetation.

Lemonade berry, Laurel sumac, California sycamore, California buckwheat and California rose are some of the native plants waiting to be planted in the refurbished land, Urbanski said.

A sound similar to maracas emitted from a dense stack of stems. A teenage rattlesnake emerged from its former home, terrified of its unprovoked invaders and eradicators.

Urbanski conceptualized the wild animal would find a halfway home until it can return to the reformed area, free of constant human interference. He continued with the affirmation that rattlesnakes are wanted within the ecosystem because of its powerful hunger for rodents and rabbits.

The rattlesnake curbs the population of its herbivorous-prey into an environmentally sustainable size.

Digging in the dirt alongside the OC Parks volunteers were the CSUF Student Recycling Club volunteers.

Organized since 2009, and with a strict no membership fee policy, the Student Recycling Club is not only involved in traditional recycling programs but also eclectic salvaging projects, such as converting a weedy-wasteland into an aesthetically embellished landscape for a multitude of future generations to enjoy.

The Student Recycling Club also volunteers every Sunday at Someone Cares Soup Kitchen in Costa Mesa.

Trinh “Sky” Pham, the Student Recycling Club president, said she would describe the organization as, “small in size, but big in the action.”

Celebrating her 32nd birthday, Summer Duong, a friend of the Pham, decided to benevolently influence and perpetuate a world she wants to see for years to come.

Two Korean exchange students studying environmental engineering, Soomin Woo, 22, and Seula Kong, 23, have both been in the country for a couple of months, but already have invested a substantial amount of time conserving a land that was once foreign to them.

Although understaffed, the Student Recycling Club makes paramount contributions through its extraordinary crew, Pham said.

“We have been working on the mission of using proceeds of recycles to donate to needy people and the community,” Pham said. “Last year we gave out 200 sleeping bags and 180 toiletries to needy people from Los Angeles and Orange County, (and) donated $500 that equals to 10,000 meals for Vietnamese orphan kids in Stop Hunger events.”

The club recently submitted a proposal to Associated Students Inc., which is currently being drafted into a plan, Pham said.

The proposal is to have an on-campus recycling program involving the Student Recycling Club, the Environmental Health and Safety department, ASI and the campus community.

The plan intends to establish recycling bins on campus and an incentive program that promotes active recycling.

On Halloween, the Student Recycling Club, in collaboration with the CSUF Volunteer Service Center, will be hosting Trick-or-Cans. The event is a campaign to collect cans instead of candy.