Awareness Piece

01POEM

2,000 Garbage Trucks

by Cameron Lewin

Two thousand trucks a dayRolling to the shoreTipping all their contentsInto oceans, lakes, and more.We built a world on plasticCheap and fast and brightNever stopping once to askWhere it goes at night
It goes into the riversIt goes into the seaIt goes into the fishAnd ends up on your plate to eatIt breaks down into piecesWay too tiny for the eyeBut small enough to travelThrough the water, soil, and sky
They found it in the mountainsThey found it in the snowThey found it in a babyBefore it got to growThey found it in the ArcticThey found it in your bloodWhat started as convenienceHas become a rising flood
But something now is shiftingA generation waking upRefusing to stay quietRefusing the single-use cupColombia and JamaicaSaid enough is enough todayEven small agreementsCan begin to clear the way
02RESPONSE

I created a poem about the plastic pollution crisis that is happening all over the world. I decided to make this because this issue is detrimental to the environment and I felt a personal connection because it is my everyday life. Unlike other world issues, this one is happening to everyone around the world, even in your own home. I chose to make a poem because I felt that facts or statistics alone isn't always enough to get into someone's head like how a poem does.

The message I want to convey is that plastic pollution isn't just some environmental problem that is happening far away in our oceans, but that it has managed to get inside of our bodies, our blood, our food, and our water, and that humans are responsible for it. I want people to understand that this issue didn't happen by accident but that it happened because companies want to make the maximum amount of profit, governments not doing enough, and a consumer culture that normalized throwing things away without a thought.

The action I hope people take after reading this poem is that they should start making better decisions when it comes to plastic consumption, whether that means to stop using single use plastic, start buying sustainable products, and start to pay attention to how much plastic gets wasted in a day.