A Bear Grylls Adventure 4 by Bear Grylls

Author:Bear Grylls [Grylls, Bear]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bonnier Publishing Fiction
Published: 2017-05-23T16:00:00+00:00

Chloe looked at the slab of polystyrene. “But if it just floats, why does it matter?” she asked innocently.

“Because it doesn’t just float. It breaks up and those pieces block up the stomachs of fish and animals, and strangles them from inside. It absorbs poisons and spreads them wherever it goes Polystyrene never breaks down naturally. And it literally kills the ecosystem.”

“The … what?”

“The ecosystem,” Bear repeated quietly. “The way all the different animals and plants in an area live together. Plants grow, small animals eat the plants, big animals eat the small animals, big animals die, they decay into the ground and fertilise the plants so they can grow. It’s the circle of life – where everything depends on everything else.”

Chloe stood there silently, looking at the polystyrene. But with eyes that now understood. It looked so harmless – but it wasn’t. She wondered how many hundreds of animals could be poisoned by that one slab.

Chloe thought of the rubber bands she had flicked at those tin cans back at Camp – and just left there. She hadn’t really thought about what would happen to them. Would they rot, or would they just stay there until some animal ate them and got strangled from the inside?

“But it’s impossible to clear all the rubbish in the world,” Chloe said as Bear shoved the polystyrene into his backpack. “Even if you pick up one piece there’ll be a million more bits.”

Bear started walking again.

“I once saw a turtle with a plastic straw up its nose. About this long all the way up, with just a tiny bit poking out at one end,” he said, holding up his fingers about ten centimetres apart. “We do good things not because we can save the world all alone. We do good things because it is right, and because we can. I once saw a seal that had been deformed by the plastic rings from a four-pack of cans,” he went on. “When it was a baby it had got one of its flippers stuck in a ring – and it kept growing. The plastic cut into its flesh, right down to the bone.”

Bear paused.

“To that seal it would have made a difference if someone had picked up just that one bit of rubbish.”

Chloe was quiet. It was a horrible thought.

Bear changed the subject and pointed ahead.

“Anyway, I promised you lunch. Over there.”

She looked where he was pointing.

“Ice cream?” she said in surprise.

Dozens of small, green ice-cream cones were walking across the sand …

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