In 2010, six people made history when they sailed (航行) across the Pacific Ocean in a boat. Why was this special? Because the boat was made from 12,500 used plastic (塑料的) bottles, and its name was Plastiki.

The journey wasn’t easy. They took 128 days to sail 9,000 miles across the ocean from California, USA to Australia. During this time, they lived on the boat, ate food from cans and took showers in sea water. So why did they do it? Because they wanted to draw people’s attention to the problem of plastic waste.

The Plastiki project was started by David de Rothschild. In 2006, he read about plastic pollution in the seas and oceans, and learnt that one plastic bottle lasts for 450 years!

Plastic waste causes 80% of ocean pollution, kills a million seabirds and 100,000 fish and other sea animals. Many people think that this plastic waste comes from ships, but they’re wrong. The amazing fact is that 80% of the plastic in the oceans is made of the rubbish we drop in our streets, parks and beaches.

The easiest way to make a difference is to stop using plastic shopping bags and disposable (一次性的) water bottles. The great thing is that now millions of people are “doing their own Plastiki” in their homes, schools and offices.

As David de Rothschild said, “We aren’t scientists, we’re ordinary people. We want to show that if we work together, we can do something”.

There was once a little gray planet that was very sad. The people living there hadn’t looked after it, even though they had all the inventions and space ships you could ever need. They had polluted the whole countryside so much with rubbish and pollution that there were no plants or animals left.

One day, a little boy was walking on the planet, when he passed a cave and noticed a small red flower inside. The flower was very sick almost dying so the boy carefully dug up the flower, with roots, soil and everything. Then, he started looking for a place where it could grow well. He searched all over the planet, but everywhere was so polluted that there was no place the flower could possibly live in.Then he looked up at the sky and noticed the moon. It seemed that maybe the plant could survive(生存) there.

So the little boy climbed into a space ship. He put the little red flower in the back, and off they went to the moon.

Far away from all that pollution, the flower soon grew up, giving birth to others, and these other flowers spread onto other flowers. Before long, the whole moon was completely covered with flowers.

That’s why, whenever the little boy’s flowers open up, for a few minutes the moon takes on a soft red sheen(光辉), like a warning light. Maybe it’s telling us that if you don’t look after your planet, a day will come when flowers will only be able to grow on the moon.