Issue – Ocean Pollution 

My life as a Plastic Bag - by Chloe B (Year 7) 

On the day I was born, my first sight was a factory. The next thing I took into account was my 273,972,603 brothers and sisters. Once we were moulded into our traditional shape, we were separated and sold to companies like Coles, Woolworths, Big W, Kmart and multiple others. I went to Coles. I was immediately put on this rack at a register with a kind young lady named Samantha, or at least that’s what her name tag said, she would be my bagging lady. 

The next day, on her Monday, 10am shift, it was my turn. I was first on the rack, ready to be handy and helpful. A couple with a baby and a young girl, around 8, came to the checkout, up first and getting ready for the week. I bagged a Barbie, a bottle of orange juice, a box of frozen chicken nuggets and a bag of frozen chips. After Samantha picked me up and put me in the ‘to be trolleyed’ bay, the father hoisted me into his trolley. The little girl, sitting in the inbuilt chair platform, reached over to me and pulled out the Barbie, opening it and handing the rubbish to her mother. The mother scooted the trolley over to the red bin and dumped the plastic into it. The father then placed the rest of the bags into the trolley, thanked Samantha, grabbed the handle and urging the heavy trolley forward. Me and my 5 other siblings were off to our new forever home! 

We pull up to a house in the family car. The little girl unbuckles and jumps out of the car, gets to the door, and screams for her mum to unlock it. While mum deals with the meltdown, baby in arm, dad pulls open the boot and grabs us by the handles. After we are inside, our products are unloaded and put into the big grey box. Then, he shoves us into the white bin filled with garbage like apple cores, yogurt tubes, baby food containers and glad wrap.  

We stay there for a couple days, the family occasionally coming to put other things in there. A week passes, and we are finally lifted out of the darkness and into the open space of the kitchen, except this time, we are surrounded by a bigger plastic bag.  We get thrown around for a little while, until we stop, and I hear a lid open. After a couple seconds we are thrown into a bigger bin, rolled out onto the road, and left there overnight.  

The next morning, a huge rumbling wakes us up. It gets closer, and closer, before stopping right in front of us. I feel frightened, what is happening. We sit there in suspense before being hurled vertically into a huge metal box, that is filled with other garbage, but our bag was ripped, and I rolled out and away from the truck. I was on the road and now that the wind had hold of me, I was not getting away. I rolled and drifted through the air, tumbling and ripping even more. I was heading towards a big blue land mass, that was moving? Well, I was about to find out what it was.  

 I plunged into icy water, and so suddenly, I was swept to the side with the strong, powerful current. There I was, flowing out and away from all the land and all the homes I ever knew, and moving towards the big, empty ocean. The big, empty abyss. The place where all outcasts end up one day, lonely, quiet, isolated.  

Days of drifting, weeks of emptiness, months of noiselessness, years of abandonment pass, until I reach something that looks like an island, wait, I look closer, it’s made out of garbage? What is this place? Where am I? There looks to be millions of pieces of trash here? So many other plastic bags! 

I am in the great pacific garbage patch. There are 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic here. This is just an estimate. We are actively damaging our world. Every day, over 8 million pieces of plastic end up in our ocean. We cannot survive like this. By 2050, there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish.  

“no water, no life, no blue, no green” – Sylvia Earle 

“the greatest danger to our world, is the belief that someone else will save it” – Robert Swan 

Student Contributions in The Messenger

We encourage students to email contributions for the new section of our weekly newsletter, titled "Student Voice". It may be a short story, a poem, service activity, an achievement or award (sporting, scouts, Duke of Ed etc). Please email to jcollins@gpcc.nsw.edu.au for consideration of inclusion in The Messenger.