A Day in the Life of an Ordinary Piece of Trash

Everyone litters, so by that logic, it should be an okay thing to do, right? Wrong. Littering might seem like it's not that big of a deal- the trash collectors always come by and pick up all of the trash left lying around, so it shouldn't matter whether or not the citizens pick up their trash. The unfortunate reality is much worse. Let's take a look at a day in the life of a piece of ordinary trash lying around in a street:
"Hello there, I am your ordinary piece of trash named water bottle. I was thrown away by my owners who were kind enough to put me into the plastic bottle section of their recycling can. I got to meet a lot of trash in there, that surprisingly, had the same name and looked just like me! It was the weirdest experience that I've ever had, but that didn't mean that I wasn't sorry to be torn apart from my family, mere minutes after I'd met them. I had just been hanging around talking to my amigos, when all of a sudden, a huge gust of wind knocked our trash can house down. I rolled down the steep side of my trashcan & found myself lying in the back alley street in dog poop, with some of my family members close by. Thankfully, soon after, my owners came by and righted our trashcan and picked up my family of water bottles-except for me. Maybe I was discriminated against, because my dress said Dasani on it and everyone else's said Aquafina, but I didn't know and I guess I never would. I lay there for many hours, pondering my fate, when an innocent dog came by. He picked me up and started running alongside the river that was nearby my owner's house; when he heard his owners shout his name, he dropped me into the riverbank, leaving me stranded helplessly, as always, in between many reeds. It was a while before the wind picked up again and I was violently dropped into the river, resulting in a great big splash. I started floating down the river with various fishes coming by and nudging me along; their touch felt like something was tickling me and I felt the remnants of the dog poop swirling around me and sticking to the fishes. Eventually, the river emptied into the ocean and I could feel the water changing from the nice freshwater, into a somehow more menacing saltwater. I bobbed out at sea for many days, & the only thing that kept me from dying of boredom were the fish that usually followed me around and mistook me for food; it wasn't very fun being partially swallowed, but at least it kept things interesting. I suddenly realized that for some reason, all the fish that usually followed me around had disappeared. This was getting very strange, and for some reason the Jaws theme song started playing in my head. Unexpectedly, I felt myself being bitten swiftly by sharp teeth- that definitely had not felt like an ordinary fish, especially since I hadn't been spit out immediately, like I usually was! I believed this was the end for me, but unbeknownst to my predator (which I believed to be a shark), this would be the end for him too. Silly shark, water bottles aren't food-and eating one might not make him die, but it would poison him-just like it had done to all the other fish. I didn't want to die so soon, but I was happy that it was now, after I had achieved so much in my short life as trash. At least I had accomplished my goal, my parents would be proud of me now-I had poisoned many animals and hurt the habitat of many others by contaminating it with the dog poop I picked up along the way and my sheer presence. I was a successful piece of trash, and even now as I was going down, I was taking one with me. I had a nice life and as I saw the insides of the shark, though I was not happy to be obliterated, I was still proud."

We can see how much impact is caused by just one, measly, little water bottle left in a random back alley-now imagine what happens every day. It's not like in our whole world we've only got one water bottle lying around, people litter all the time, assuming someone else will pick it up. This might come true sometimes, but not always. This story may be exaggerated a little, but not by much-everyday all the litter on the ground does damage the environment. Whether it's by ending up in a bird's nest or by floating out into the ocean, our world is being hurt. Can we do something to stop this?