Consumed by Danny Chivers

Consumed Plastic throwaway junk won't go away
Sixty thousand tonnes or so a day
Styrene shells from round Big Macs
The bags from crisps and other snacks
Teetering stacks of Tetrapaks
Forced into bulging rubbish sacks.

Landfill: a fine memento mori
Monument to our vainglory...
But this is only half the story.

Coal fuels the dark, satanic mills
That choke the air in Indo-China
Making useless dross to fill
Our homes and dustbin-liners.

This trail of fault gives a result
You might find rather strange
With every piece of merchandise
Included in the burger price
And every pack of useless tat
"Look Mum - free climate change!"

And so we're cooking the planet

With fresh fruit packaging, gnomes with wacky grins
Odd little plastic inside cracker things
Blow-up chairs, spray-on hair,
Clothes you know you'll never wear
Low-fat grills, weight-loss pills
Electric salt and pepper mills
Garden strimmers, nose-hair trimmers
Buzzing belts to make you slimmer
Blackhead guns, rubber nuns,
Cuddly emoticons
Plasma screens, ski machines,
Ant and Dec figurines
Flashing ties, dolls that cry
Another book on Princess Di
Electronic Hang-Man
Fake tan, Cillit Bang
A robot dog called Humper who thrusts gamely at your leg
While you de-bobble your jumper and auto-de-shell your egg
Wave goodbye to spills with this fantastic
Olive oil decanter
And get festive with this life-sized plastic
Yoda dressed as Santa.

Every tragic item in this wretched litany is real
So please try to understand just how ridiculous I feel
Attempting to explain this to my unbelieving friends
Like some mad prophet of doom convinced the world's about to end:

"All those Kinder Eggs you buy
Will drain Botswana's soils dry!
Your room-perfumer (Alpine Fresh)
Is flooding towns in Bangladesh!
How far has the Sahara grown
For your dancing banana phone?"

It's not too pro-vitamin complex
For us to understand
That this fun for all the family is getting out of hand
And so try to get a New! Flexi-Grip!
On what I'm trying to say
Things that add nothing to our lives
Take others' lives away
And bring eco-armageddon
A bit closer every day

We need new rules on tax and trade
To stop this crap from being made
So join me on the barricades
And start demanding LESS!