The Burden of Plastic

Lets hope that they clean up the plastic

Lets hope that the do-gooders, the positive thinkers

will pick up the endless debris, filling thin plastic bin liners with ugly, discarded, one-use water bottles

broken flip flops

coloured rope bits,chunks of mouldy yellowed foam

letting the sand, that was hidden, see the sky again.

Re-cycle it they say.

i ask myself but won’t it turn up again?

Wont it wash up again in its recycled form and lie amongst pebbles waiting for hippy mums, the well meaning dads to instruct their burdened children to pick it up and save the planet?

So we are all wearing coats made from recycled fishing nets.

We are drinking coconut milk lattes from biodegradable cups and believe we have secured the future of the human race.

We watch the salt water rush up onto the shore cover the golden sands then it retreats in pretty foamed lines

and we are cheered

almost smug.

That clean sand

not a squished,crumpled plastic container in sight.

We lie back in our recycled deck chairs and hope the fish won’t get stabbed by plastic forks again.

We hope that the turtles won’t ever die slowly again entangled in masses of endless net or that the silly gulls won’t fill their guts with random polythene scraps and ruin their digestive systems again.

We hope its all sorted.