One sunny afternoon, a little girl named Rose was sitting in the park.
The birds were singing, the flowers were swaying, and Rose was happily eating a yummy fruit bar.
“Mmm! Strawberry!” she smiled.
Just then, a man walked past her. He was drinking a bottle of sparkling water.
Glug, glug, glug!
He finished the last sip, looked at the empty bottle…
and tossed it onto the grass.
Plop!
Then he walked away.
Rose looked at the bottle.
“Oh,” she thought.
A little later, Rose finished her fruit bar.
She looked at the wrapper in her hand.
Then she looked at the bottle on the grass.
“That man left his bottle here,” she said.
“So maybe I can leave mine too.”
She dropped the wrapper.
Flutter, flutter… plop!
Nearby, a boy named Felix was eating an ice pop.
He saw Rose drop her wrapper.
When Felix finished his ice pop, he looked at his own wrapper.
“Rose did it,” he said.
And he dropped his wrapper too.
Plop!
A few children playing with a ball saw Felix.
Soon, one juice box landed beside the path.
Then another wrapper.
Then another bottle.
Plop. Plop. Plop.
Before long, the lovely green park did not look quite so lovely anymore.
A wrapper was stuck beside the flowers.
A bottle lay near the bench.
A juice box rolled across the path in the wind.
Just then, a little boy named Johnny came into the park with his mum.
Johnny stopped.
“Oh no, Mummy! Look at all the rubbish!”
His mum looked around.
“We can help,” she said with a smile.
She picked up a bottle and dropped it into a nearby bin.
Plop!
Johnny picked up a wrapper.
He held it high.
“One for the bin!”
Plop!
“One for the bin!” his mum laughed.
Rose watched them.
Then she looked down at her fruit-bar wrapper.
“That one is mine,” she said quietly.
She picked it up.
“One for the bin!”
Plop!
Felix looked at his ice-pop wrapper.
“And that one is mine!”
He picked it up too.
“One for the bin!”
Plop!
Johnny’s mum smiled.
“Even when we see someone drop rubbish,” she said, “we can choose to do the right thing.”
Soon, Rose, Felix and Johnny were searching all around the park.
“One for the bin!”
Plop!
“One for the bin!”
Plop!
“One for the bin!”
Plop!
The other children saw them cleaning and joined in too.
Little by little, the grass became green again.
The flowers could be seen again.
And the path was clean.
Then someone stopped beside them.
It was the man from before.
He looked at the children.
Then he noticed the empty sparkling-water bottle in Johnny’s hand.
His bottle.
“Oh,” said the man.
He looked a little embarrassed.
“I think I made a bad choice.”
He spotted one last piece of rubbish near the bench and picked it up.
Johnny smiled and pointed to the bin.
The man smiled too.
“One for the bin?”
Everyone laughed.
“ONE FOR THE BIN!”
Plop!
Rose looked around at the clean, beautiful park.
“Next time,” she said, “I’ll put my rubbish in the bin straight away.”
Felix nodded.
“Me too.”
And from that day on, whenever they had something to throw away, they remembered their little park cheer:
One for the bin!
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