A Message We Can't Throw Away
I have read other poems about recycling and sustainability, but A Message in a Bottle impacted me more because of the visuals that go along with it. The video follows a man doing normal everyday things, like eating fast food, using cleaning products on his car, using cosmetic products, and even showing the diapers he used as a baby. The poem emphasizes that these are things we cannot simply throw away and expect to disappear. Even after we are done with them, the materials still exist somewhere on Earth and can continue to cause harm if they are not properly recycled or disposed of. One of the most impactful moments is when the man imagines what his grave would look like with all of the waste he has produced piled on top of it. This makes him nervous about where his waste will end up, so he tries to get rid of it. He burns a plastic bottle, which creates smoke that affects birds, throws trash out of his car window, which animals eventually eat thinking it is food, and even flushes a bottle down the toilet.
The video ends with the man relaxing by the ocean when the same plastic bottle washes up near him. The poem says, “you see a bottle bobbing by, know that bottle is a message traversing the ocean of time,” playing with the idea of a message in a bottle. I think this ending is especially effective because it shows that even when we think we have gotten rid of something, it can eventually find its way back to us or affect someone else.
The Poem:
Every piece of plastic you have ever touched. Still exists.
Every bottle of Coke, Every dispenser of soap, Every Spray and Wipe, Every Sprite, Every beer at a rugby game, Any beauty product you care to name. They all, still...exist.
Then there’s the dishwashing liquid, Those little bottles of liquor, Your baby sipper From when you needed a baby sitter, The ball you kicked when you were a kid, the disposable nappies that caught your shit, They all. Still. Exist.
You can send them up in smoke but they never break down, Their core components will remain forever abound, It’s plastic..not magic. So it doesn’t disappear It’s literally floating in the ocean Or in the atmosphere.
So next time you’re at the beach, And you see a bottle bobbing by, Know that bottle is a message traversing the ocean of time. (Pigville, 2015)
As someone who did not grow up recycling, I think this video impacted me more than written poems about sustainability have. It shows a very human response to realizing the effects of our waste: feeling scared and even ashamed of how our actions can affect the environment. Throwing away the plastic we have used does not actually make the problem go away. Once it is out of our sight, we can get the illusion that it is also out of our minds. In reality, our actions can come back to affect us, just like the bottle the man flushes down the toilet eventually comes back while he is relaxing by the ocean. It shows the consequences of our ignorance and connects to the idea behind the law of conservation of mass: we cannot simply make matter disappear. We can change it, break it down, or transform it into something else, but the material still exists.
This connects directly to my project with Marble Plastics. Even after plastic waste is recycled by melting it down and creating a new slab of material, the CNC process creates small shavings and offcuts that are still plastic waste. Breaking the material down into tiny pieces does not make it disappear. It is still something that needs to go somewhere and be dealt with. This is why I think the poem connects to my project: recycling can change the form of waste, but it does not necessarily eliminate the waste. We still need to find ways to give these leftover materials another purpose.
Reference
Pigville. (2015, May 28) A Message in a Bottle. [Video] Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uUXAKdsnIw
