Tower and Town, November 2019

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Open Letter To The UK Government

Dear Mr Johnson,

Picture a long sandy beach filled with families and friends enjoying themselves. Picture the ocean, mesmerising and vast, the fish circling around the vibrant colours of the coral.

That was the past.

Now imagine that same beach, covered in the remains of plastic bottles, bags and packaging – completely unused by the public. Picture the ocean again; those same fish living under plastic bottles, the same corals now bleached and dying. Is this dismal, disappointing sight really what we want?

We are writing this letter to you as it has come to our attention that the government as a whole is not doing enough to sort out the ominous problem of plastic. Vast and limitless, our ocean contains many magnificent species that are being abused by human action. The repetitive use of plastic is destroying the world as we speak and must be put to an end. Statistics state that 8 million tonnes of plastic is dumped into the ocean every year; we fear that this problem is becoming astronomically worse. The impending danger of global warming looms over the land and future generations; a tyrannical issue rumoured to be the end of humanity. Don’t you want to protect our nation and our Earth? Because you can, as a government, together.

Artwork by Anna Oliver

With so many plastic alternatives available, the world really must wake up and acknowledge the trauma we are causing. Even by reusing plastic bags, buying a reusable water bottle or using paper straws you are helping us get back on track. We must change our habits or it will be too late.

Someone once said “it’s just one bottle, it hardly makes a difference”. One person said that and billions of others followed. This stubborn belligerence intoxicates us with anger and steals the oxygen from our air. Give it back. Give us back our beach. Give us back our ocean.

Yours hopefully

Bonnie Cartwright, Georgina Wakefield and Yasmin Lester