I have no right to stand here and tell on you

for ruining Earth every day,

because I do too.

We’re all guilty of this crime,

all the time. You think

your metal straw is good,

but I feel like you’ve misunderstood

where that straw came from. That ‘eco-friendly’

metallic shine comes from a nickel mine,

400 hectares of land in Palawan alone

was turned into barren wastelands

for its extraction and production.

This once lush island of the Philippines

is a map of destruction

Just sourcing your pretty little straw

causes massive land and water pollution

This isn’t a helpful solution

but don’t get me wrong, it makes a contribution

since metal is far better than plastic

but it’s not quite so fantastic

as everyone makes it out to be.

The real problem isn’t that people are failing to see,

they’re failing to change

to routines that are new and maybe

a little strange,

like simple beeswax wrap,

which leaves no plastic scrap

a tiny change to our daily lives

somehow seems more terrifying than the end

of planet Earth.

Do we even realise what the world is worth?

From the way we treat it, anyone would think

we hate this place. But it’s not just me

who doesn’t want a fate

in space. Earth isn’t

something we can just replace.

The human race is staring in the face

the idea that if we don’t persevere,

we won’t be able to live here,

and we seem to not care.

We just keep consuming

always assuming that there’ll be someone else

to stand up, tell us our world is dying while

we keep buying. Does it not even matter?

We’re climbing a ladder

and the higher we get, the bigger

the drop, but we still want to reach the top,

even though we know

we should stop. Stop

buying, denying there’s a problem –

extinction was always a word for other species,

but if we keep chopping down trees,

poisoning our seas,

polluting the breeze,

stealing from the bees,

we could be the extinct ones.

And if that time comes, there’d be no one

to classify our status, no one to rate us,

because we’d all be gone. So

next time you’re tempted to buy something,

consider how soon you’ll be dumping that thing,

because every scrap of plastic counts.

It all mounts to a big pile, stretches on for miles, and it’s

just depressing. This issue

is pressing, but we’re not addressing,

not confessing to our mistakes.

These stakes are high. So next time,

think,

think before you buy.