An Earth-Bot’s Solution to Plastic Pollution

In An Earth-Bot’s Solution to Plastic Pollution, Russell Ayto, through both words and images, depicts the story of Neo, a little boy living right next to an ocean overrun with plastic pollution. Neo’s grandfather tries to motivate Neo to clean up his room which, in his opinion, is “an area of outstanding danger to nature”. But Neo is occupied with his video game, Space Cabbages, where he is tasked with protecting the earth from invading aliens he has to ward off “by chucking cabbages at them”. Through the course of playing his game Neo realizes that he can only win and save the earth from invading aliens if all “Earth-Bots join in” to assist in the effort. Neo’s grandfather scoffs, believing Neo’s efforts at virtual earth salvation are not nearly as important as real life earth salvation, i.e., Neo’s cleaning his quite untidy room.

When Neo’ grandfather leaves for the day to attend an astronaut reunion, he challenges a skeptical Neo to clean his room in the meantime, a challenge Neo mostly ignores. While Neo’s fending off a giant space centipede in his video game, someone knocks on the door. When Neo finally answers, he’s confronted with a seal who asks for his help cleaning up the neighbouring ocean’s plastic pollution problem. Neo is dismissive, giving the seal the feather duster his grandfather left him and returning to his video game. The seal returns later with a penguin in tow, again asking for assistance. Again their pleas land on deaf ears, and Neo merely thrusts the vacuum cleaner and recycling bin his grandfather left him at them and returns to his video game. The sea creatures (now including a turtle) return once again, complaining of the ineffectiveness of Neo’s cleaning tools under the water. Neo finally relents and joins the creatures in the ocean, observing with shock the level of pollution first-hand and how it affects all life there.

Neo learns that the pollution problem is, in fact, a bigger threat to the earth than any video game alien invasion, but, like in the game, the problem can only be fixed if every person lends a helping hand. The turtle argues that he doesn’t wish to clean up other people’s messes his whole life, and Neo agrees whole-heartedly, saying he barely wants to clean up his own room. In this way, Neo is taught that his small contribution to assisting in the pollution clean-up can be the cleaning of his own room, and, by cleaning his small individual space, he’s making less waste for others to have to deal with. “And if everyone around the world also joins in and uses less plastic, planet Earth can be saved without a single space cabbage being chucked!” When Neo’s grandfather returns, he’s amazed by the progress Neo has made cleaning his room and the huge amount of recycling waiting outside. Neo immediately begins educating his grandfather in the tremendous problem of plastic pollution, and the final page is devoted to explaining the concepts of reduce, reuse, recycle and how the average person can help minimize pollution.

Though Ayto’s prose may be too wordy for younger readers and the story’s message is very obvious in its delivery, the narrative does convey the weighty issue of pollution in terms that are understandable to children. By aligning general ecological consciousness with Neo’s video game’s premise and emphasizing the small part Neo can play by simply cleaning his own room, Ayto delivers his message clearly, informing young readers of an easy-to-understand, practical call to action to assist in mitigating a very large environmental problem.

Ayto’s clever illustrations use subtle white silhouettes of plastics (primarily bottles) within the large blue/green ocean spreads, illustrating the plastics problem in a way that is present throughout every image to gradually inform child readers while still delighting them with bright soothing colours and simply drawn characters. Though relatively unsophisticated in the delivery of its message, An Earth-Bot's Solution to Plastic Pollution presents an easy-to-understand narrative concerning a very weighty issue to child readers, delivered with engrossing illustrations.