Things are made, brought to the store, and then we buy them, and then they go to a big hole in the ground, which is called landfill. It is called landfill because it literally fills the land with our rubbish. Plastic - what almost every item from the store is made out of, or partially - It takes a very short time to make, but thousands of years to break down. Because of this, every piece of plastic ever made is still here somewhere… Mainly in a hole in the ground, but sometimes in rivers (like the Yangtze river or Thames), lakes, oceans, and lingering around in towns and cities.

Of course, there is always recycling, but it’s not enough to get us out of this mess. Recycling will give us a little time to think of solutions, but, like I said, it’s not THE solution. Some things can’t be recycled; you know those juice boxes that are layered - paper, plastic, metal - it’s impossible to separate and recycle, even though the materials are recycle.

There are ways to help, here are a few:

• Make sure you put your rubbish in the right bin!
• You could make a worm farm. There’s a mission for that
• Try and re-use your things. Before you throw away that jam jar or that old egg carton, think, “can i use this for something else?”
• Tell your council you want to action to this problem.

And be quick about it; if things don’t change, in roughly eight years the US would have run out of space for landfills!!