My Eco-Wisdom Story - I Am A Plastic Bag

I Am A Plastic Bag

Marissa Pare-Castro

There was once a plastic bag.  It was its first time in the outside world. It met its master in the grocery store.  In it were laundry and cleaning items.

 “These stuff are just enough for me to carry.  Thank you master,” said the plastic bag.

Its master didn’t hear it but she appeared pleased by the plastic bag.

When they got home, its master called her house helper.

“Jane, can you please take these to the wash room?” asked her master.

Jane did as she was told.  The plastic bag watched what Jane was doing.  She took all the stuff and arranged them in the shelves.  Then she put the plastic bag in a drawer.  The plastic bag was startled.  It did not expect that.  It felt how it was crumpled and pushed into the drawer to fit in with a lot of things there.

Inside the drawer, the plastic bag tried to be as friendly as it could.

“H-H-Hi! Hello, everyone.  Sorry if I hit some of you.  It was not my fault.”

“Hi! buddy. We’re the same.  I’m a plastic bag, too”.

The plastic bag was so happy meeting someone of its kind.

“So what if you’re a plastic bag!” said the cockroach who’s with them in the drawer.

“Never mind that bug.  It envies us” said that someone of its kind.

“Envy you? Shut up! How could I envy you when the only thing you could do is to make easy for humans to carry something! You’re a poison to the soil, the water and the air!  You are a threat to every living creature on Earth!”

“What are you saying, cockroach?  I cannot understand” said the plastic bag.

“You don’t know.  Oh, I understand.  You did not see your destiny yet.  You could live up to 1,000 years.  And throughout those years, you will be turned into pieces by pieces.  Those pieces of yours can go anywhere, even to the food chain, as you gradually leach your chemicals into the soil, the water and the air. You are nobody but a trash!”

The plastic bag cried loudly like a child.  Nobody could pacify it at first.  But that someone of its kind suddenly sang.

“I am a plastic bag. Yes, I am a trash.

But this is not my choice.

Use me more, more and more.

But don’t use another plastic bag anymore.”

The plastic bag stopped crying. It realized that it can still be used by its master.  Suddenly, Jane opened the drawer and took the plastic bag.  Jane put all the trash she got from cooking inside the plastic bag and throw it into the trash can. 

The plastic bag met different kinds of trash in the trash can.  They all looked so terrible and sad.  The plastic bag tried to talk to them but Jane came back and gave them all to the garbage truck. 

“Hi, guys.  How are you?” said the plastic bag upon falling onto the garbage in the truck.  The plastic bag heard nothing good from all the kinds of garbage in the truck.  It just pretended that it’s deaf and mute.

A year has passed and all inside the plastic bag has decomposed already but not the plastic bag.  Since it became empty, it was blown helplessly by the wind and reached the sea. 

“What are you doing here?  Do not contaminate us here.  Get lost!” the angry dolphin said.

The plastic bag cried loudly like a child again and then said “I wish I am not a plastic bag”.