Where do you think it goes?

Tim Ellis

Where do you think it goes, your plastic?
Where do you think it goes?
When you chuck a choc bar wrapper 
does it decompose?
That top from a bottle of pop you drop:
do you think it grows
into something beautiful?
A fruit tree or a rose?
And last week at the checkout counter:
remember how you chose
to buy a tacky placky sack
instead of bringing one of those
trusty tote bags you re-use?
Well…?
Where do you think it goes?

Does it go to ground in landfill
or do you think it blows
around the streets and over farmland,
trapped and flapping in the hedges,
or settles lonely on a moorland
to lurk eternal in the sedges?
Or does it lodge in a local river,
litter lade, which flows
defiled down to an estuary
disgorging in the open sea?
Does it ride the ocean currents,
drifting fifty years or more,
choking birds and seals and dolphins,
afflicting in splinters the tropical shores?
That fairground balloon of yours
makes a carcass of a porpoise,
your lunch-pack snacks are slaying orcas!
Do you suppose
a leatherback turtle wants your wrap wrapping
wrapped around its nose?
Where do you think it goes?

Some might judge it too simplistic 
but this solution I propose:
we snap the blister pack, the clasping
clamshell on our planet’s throat
by thinking more about the cost it
costs to toss a bit of plastic.

The Science

Every piece of plastic we throw away has a journey. We hope when we place it in a recycling bin that the journey will be towards sustainable re-use, but plastic can escape into the environment from waste and recycling systems. Along with litter that is carelessly or deliberately dumped, around 8 million tons of plastic enter the world’s oceans every year. Half of all plastics ever made have been produced in the last 20 years, and production is expected to double by 2050. As well as danger to marine wildlife by choking, stomach packing, or strangulation, plastics break down into microplastic particles which have been found in more than 100 aquatic species, and also in human bodies, drinking water, and floating in the air.

The Poet

Tim Ellis graduated in Biochemistry at Liverpool University and now runs a gardening business. He has published six poetry collections and practices performance poetry alongside more academic page poetry, mostly on environmental themes. His website is Birdbard.weebly.com

Next poem: Cormorant Wildfire Blues by Meg Freer