Sophie saves the planet first draft

SOPHIES SAVES THE PLANET

This is Sophie, she just turned 7 and she lives on Planet earth, probably where you live too!

Sophie grew up in the on a farm in the Yorkshire countryside and lived with her mum, dad, sister and kitten Oscar.

They grew their own vegetables, got all of their food at the local shops and spent their days playing in the nearby fields when not at school. Their kitten Oscar even used to make friends with the sheep!

They loved living there, but when Sophie was 6 her mum got a job in London!

How exciting, she thought! She couldn’t wait to tell all of her friends at school about the move and within a few weeks they were off.

They promised to send letters back and forth and promised she would come back and visit all the time

As they approached London Sophie began to worry, she noticed that there weren’t many fields, the shops were all much bigger and there were more people than she’d ever seen in her life!

The next day Sophie and her mum went food shopping, it was a very different experience to back home

Sophie couldn’t understand why all the fruit and vegetables were in little plastic bags, even bananas!

Her mum explained that not everyone has the room to grow their own fruit and veg like they could back in Yorkshire, they had to come to big shops like this and buy fruit and veg that comes from a big farm somewhere

Sophie was shocked and started to worry about where all the plastic was going to end up... she has been taught in school that plastic wasn’t very good for the oceans and animals.

What if we run out of space to put it all?

On their drive home Sophie noticed bins and bins full of plastic bottles, food packaging and all sorts! What if the bins keep overflowing and London ends up totally covered in rubbish!

What is all the sheep back home turn into plastic!

Maybe we’ll have to start eating all of our rubbish instead...

Ahh! I know, thought Sophie, we can send it all to another planet in rocket ships!

Surely there are aliens up there who can get rid of it all for us? I bet they don’t even use any plastic up there anyway so they’ll have plenty of room, thought Sophie.

That’s it, I’ll go up there, me and Oscar on our big rocket ship and let all the aliens know what’s going on down here on planet earth and ask for their help.

She got right to work on her rocket ship, using some huge cardboard boxes, tinfoil, and anything else she could get her hands on.

She wasn’t silly, she knew this was just a prototype but she would take it to the Prime minister after school tomorrow to propose her idea...Why wouldn’t he say yes!

Sophie sat her family down and told her about her genius idea... she didn’t quite get the response she was looking for...

Sophie’s dad informed her that aliens have their own rubbish to sort out and they couldn’t take all of ours as well, they’ve already had to buy another planet!

Instead, her parents promised to do their part as much as they could and suggested they get Sophie’s new school involved

Although they could no longer grow their own fruit and veg, they started making eco bricks! All you have to do is fill up big water bottles with the plastic packaging and once its completely full you can use them like building bricks...

Sophie told everyone at school about this and before they knew it they had build a new eco friendly wall in their playground at school!

They even built a small vegetable patch in the playground and started small by growing some strawberries, tomatoes and green beans.

Sophies family also switched to buying some of their food from a zero waste supermarket to reduce the amount of packaging they bought

Although Sophie's big plan didn't workout she felt better knowing she had tried her best and she felt very proud of what she had done to help at school

The aliens were also relieved they didn't have to sort out all of our rubbish!