Good afternoon children and welcome to your world. (applause)

We adults feel terrible, handing it over, so neglected and abused.

It all just got out of hand somehow.

Well, actually, it really began back in the fifties when they first developed plastic. Not thinking of the future, and the lasting consequences, they made just about everything out of it.

Plastic packaging, shoes and bags, buckets, polystyrene, cast off nylon fishing line. Last, but nowhere least, the plastic water bottle, are all now choking the earth and oceans.

Do you know that there is a free-floating island of garbage in the Pacific Ocean? The size of Texas! And the Atlantic has one also, hundreds of kilometers across in size.

Then there's Harrison Island. uninhabited, yet filled with garbage. The hermit crabs have plastic lotion pots, instead of shells.
They cruise around... advertising. (laughter)

When plastic first came on the scene, no one ever dreamed how crazy it could get.

Then Mr. Dupont and Mr. Dow and other big companies began to replace glass, cloth and wood with cheap, tossable plastic. They made sure that the governments and decision makers squashed any research and promotion of other natural materials, such as hemp and hessian.

That is another interesting story that we'll save for later...when you are twelve years old.

Now many of you, I hope, are already thinking... but what can we do?

Well, you can begin with little steps like refusing to use plastic straws, reusing as much as you can.

Do you realize that 500 million straws are used...daily in America? Wow.
Apparently that is 125 school buses full. Every day! Do we really need straws?

Maybe make a challenge with your families and friends to see who can be the greenest and mindful?

Recycling is good, but imagine if we all just used less, of everything.

Read up, inform yourselves on all the natural alternatives.
Share this information with others.
Be better than we have been.
Be warriors! The planet needs attention!

Again...sorry about that.

There's a beer company in Florida... more on this subject when you are twenty-one! (laughter)

They press organic waste, from brewing beer, into packaging. Now, if one of those gets into the ocean, it becomes turtle or fish or bird food.

That's a nice, clean, clever solution.

So I hope that you understand your mission, if you choose to accept, (laughter) and I would like to say sorry... thank you...and welcome to your world.

Please pick up that beautiful, blue/green ball that we dropped... and carry on.


Oh, one more thing before I go. Please kids, put your phones and games down, once in awhile.

Go outside and play.

Thank you...

and good luck!

(applause)