“Are ghosts real?” Vinuri asked her friend Ramila.

“I don’t think so,” replied Ramila, “my mother says that it’s all in the imagination.”

“But sometimes I feel scared when I think about it,” said Vinuri.

“Don’t worry yourself thinking about these things,” said Ramila, trying to console her friend, “even my grandmother says it’s all nonsense!”

Vinuri didn’t feel too scared after Ramila assured her that there is nothing to be afraid of. She even completely forgot about all this… Until one day…

Vinuri was sitting under a tree reading a book. The tree was a little away from her house and was near their fence. She didn’t feel scared to stay there alone because it was still the evening and also because she was no longer afraid of ghosts, after her friend told her that there was no such thing.

Suddenly something took Vinuri’s attention away from the book she was reading. She heard a rustling sound. It was coming from the garbage pile by the side of the road near their fence.

Some of her neighbours had a very bad habit of dumping garbage there. Although a few neighbours who cared about the environment had tried to stop this many times, this bad practice continued.

Vinuri heard her father talking against this many times. “We can’t even go near our fence, because of the terrible stench.
There are mosquitoes and flies breeding there. Why can’t people
understand how bad it is to
dump garbage everywhere!”
he’d often say.

The rustling sound got louder.
Vinuri felt a bit scared and wondered what it was. Just then she noticed some flimsy things
floating around. Some were floating above the road and some also came into Vinuri’s garden. Vinuri tried to get up and run.
But because of fear, her legs felt numb and lifeless.

A few of ‘the things’ came
floating towards her. Some of them were see-through and they looked quite light. “Surely, these have to be ghosts!” thought Vinuri, shivering in fear. They were rising up from the garbage pile and soon there were hundreds of them floating around.

A few of the ghost-like things came near her. “Who… What are you?” Vinuri managed to stutter. “Are you ghosts?” They came extremely close to her.
“What are ghosts?” asked one of the floating things. “Ghosts come from the past to haunt people!” said Vinuri getting ready to run off.

“Well, we do come from the past and yes, we will be haunting people for a very long time!” said another floating thing. Vinuri took a step to run away. Then she noticed two pieces in the corners of each floating thing. They look somewhat familiar. Vinuri stopped.
“What are those?” she asked
feeling more curious than scared this time. “Our handles!” replied the floating thing that spoke first. “People held us by these pieces, when they used us to carry things!”

It was only then that Vinuri recognized what the floating things were. They were discarded shopping bags floating around. “You are not ghosts!” she said
resting her hands on her waist. “You are shopping bags!” “But we are coming from the past to haunt people, so we are ghosts!” insisted another bag that was floating near her.

“How can shopping bags haunt people?” laughed Vinuri. She felt very silly for being afraid of a bunch of polythene and plastic bags. “Well, we come from all over because we don’t decay. People just throw us away after using us just once or twice. What they
don’t understand is that,  plastic items can take over 400 years to completely vanish!” said  a bag in
a very matter of fact tone.

“Four hundred years?” gasped Vinuri. “Yes, if a baby was born on the day that I was thrown away,
I’d still be there when that baby’s great, great, great, great grand babies are born. Do you realize the destruction that plastic and
polythene can do to the
environment? We will haunt humans for many generations. Aren’t we scarier than ghosts?” laughed a plastic bag, making Vinuri feel very scared.

Vinuri sat down feeling very worried and afraid for future of the world. “How horrible this is,” she said, “people dump so much
of polythene and plastic on a daily basis. You are definitely much
scarier than ghosts, because the
destruction that you are causing
to this world is so terrible!”

Some of the bags that came out of the garbage pile started to dig into the soil. Some of them jumped into the drains. Vinuri understood that they were trying to pollute the soil and block the waterways. She knew that soon they would take over the earth and oceans and
make all people and animals sick.

Vinuri went home feeling
absolutely shocked. “What can we do to stop creating polythene and plastic ghosts?” she wondered. “We can use a re-usable and
washable cloth bag every time we go to the shop to buy things.
Also we can stop using plastic water bottles and use a bottle that we can refill.” Vinuri was
surprised at how easy it actually was, to find other options to replace plastics and polythene.

“I must make an environment-
friendly list on what I can do to reduce plastic and polythene usage at home and at school as well. I can call it my green list,” decided Vinuri. “If we don’t care for the environment, we’ll all
suffer by the time we become adults!” thought Vinuri.
“By caring for the environment,
I will become a silent hero of the earth!” Vinuri smiled feeling very proud of  herself.

Sri Lanka becomes a Republic