Good Intentions

An Anti-Villain SF story by elveloy 

Jerry stood alongside the conveyor belt, his hands working without thinking. Glass bottles here, jars over there, plastic bottles tossed in the big tub ready for treatment by the miracle bacterium Ideonella sakaiensis. The one discovered several years ago by the Japanese, which could break down PET plastics, those hard ones. 

The newspaper and cardboard had already been extracted from the recycling bins and it was Jerry's job to sort the rest. At $10 an hour it was a crap job but it was better than nothing, as his Mum pointed out only too frequently. Jerry could hardly wait to finish school and get a proper job with a decent salary. In the meantime, he was earning money and helping the environment.

Jerry frowned as a bread bag filled with scrunched up soft plastics came along the conveyor belt. Hadn't people got the message? Soft plastics weren't recyclable, not at this plant, in any case. He plucked it off the belt and chucked it in the bin for landfill behind him. At least it was the only one for the day, so far.

At the end of his shift, Jerry stretched and rotated his shoulders. The glass bottle container was full and the forklift driver was already trundling up to take it away. Jerry checked the other containers with an experienced eye. Still plenty of room for the next sorter. He glanced behind him into the landfill bin, to see how full it was, and froze for a moment in surprise. It was empty. Completely. And he knew he'd tossed the bread bag inside it, just half an hour ago. He searched around on the ground in case by some rare chance he'd missed the bin, but there was no sign of the bag.

He looked in the bin again. Nothing, except for the paper-covered metal tie which had been twisted around the mouth of the bread bag. He chewed his bottom lip, a flush of sudden excitement heating his cheeks. What if...?

Without stopping to second guess himself, Jerry picked up the tie with his gloved fingers and popped it into a jam jar, complete with metal lid. Maybe now he had his own sample of Ideonella sakaiensis, or possibly something even better. He could hardly wait to take the tie into the lab at school and test it.

When he got home, he entertained himself for several hours searching for everything he could find on Ideonella sakaiensis.

Just as he was thinking he should really go to bed, Jerry's phone pinged. He hesitated for a second then thumbed it open. Soph's cat face stared back at him. What could she want at this hour?

"STOP mtg NOW usl plc c u sn."

A meeting? Eleven o'clock on a school night? Something must have happened. Something important. The Society for the Termination Of Plastics usually met on Friday night or the weekend.

Maybe he should take this opportunity to tell the others about the disappearing bread bag, though he hadn't had a chance to conduct any tests yet. At the moment, all he had was a tie in a jar. In the end, he left the jar at home. When he showed the others, he wanted to present them with an exciting discovery, not something that could prove to be a dud.

Jerry stuck his feet in his boots, grabbed his hoodie and slipped downstairs as quietly as he could.

But..."Where are you off to at this time of night?" His Mum's voice followed him down the passage from the kitchen, where she'd been having a nightcap with his step dad. Sprung!

"Out. No need to wait up," Jerry flung the words over his shoulder without stopping and rushed out of the house. He'd explain in the morning. Or not. After all, he was fifteen now, not ten.

He hurried down the empty street, frowning at the rubbish blowing along the gutter. People always seemed to stuff the council bins full to overflowing, and the council didn't seem willing to empty them any more frequently. Jerry pulled his hood down low over his forehead, and tucked both hands inside his pockets. This time of night, there was likely no-one else around but he didn't want to attract anyone's attention. He turned down a narrow lane and stopped outside a solid wooden door. He glanced over his shoulder, checking that he was alone, before taking out his phone and texting a quick message. Moments later, the door opened and Sophie ushered him inside.

"Good. You're the last one," she said in a low voice. She locked the door and led the way down the dimly lit passage to the room at the end. She pushed open the door, and Jerry blinked for a moment in the sudden light. Four young faces turned toward him, faces bright with anticipation. They were sitting in an odd assortment of chairs, drawn up around a scratched formica table. An older man stood with his back against the wall, arms crossed, and a frown between his eyes.

"At last," he said dourly, glancing at Sophie. "Can we start now?"

Jerry sat down hastily, as everyone turned to look at the speaker.

"I just heard. The bastards have only gone and put 'People B4 Science' and 'Animal Rights Now!'on the domestic terrorism watchlist!" he announced. "It's only a matter of time before they put S.T.O.P. there, too."

There was a collective gasp, half excited, half fearful.

"And you know what that means," continued the speaker. "No more rallies or political action of any sort. We'd be banned from meeting like this, or even talking to each other. In fact all of us, as individuals, would be open to both covert and overt investigation. If we aren't already," he added grimly.

There was nervous laughter from the group and several looked anxiously at the ceiling as if searching for hidden microphones.

"But, Steve, how can stopping plastic pollution, possibly be a terrorist activity?" demanded Hannah. "Can't they see the damage it's doing to the oceans? Are they crazy?"

"It's all down to money, matey," said Steve, rather condescendingly. "Plastics are big business."

"What are we going to do?" asked Sophie.

"Should we stop meeting for awhile? Until they forget about us?" suggested Noah, doubtfully.

Sophie and Hannah looked disapproving. "We can't just give up," argued Hannah. "This is too important an issue."

"But we're not going to be able to do anything, if we're in jail!" Noah retorted.

"I might have discovered something that can help," blurted Jerry. "A bacteria which eats soft plastic. At the recycling plant today, something caused an entire bag of soft plastics to disappear, right out of the landfill bin."

He could see the interest in everyone's faces fade as he added the last sentence.

"It probably just blew away," said Steve, dismissively. "You're hardly likely to find a world changing discovery in a recycling factory!"

"But that's exactly how they discovered Ideonella sakaiensis," protested Jerry with a triumphant grin. Everyone stared at him blankly.

"And then they would have spent years perfecting it in a laboratory," argued Steve, claiming back the limelight. "No, I think unfortunately, Noah has the right idea. We'll stay quiet for a bit until they forget about us, then we'll hit them with something big. Perhaps a street demo..."

Jerry tuned out. Fine. If nobody wanted to hear about his discovery, he'd work on it himself. Steve always had big ideas, but for some reason they never seemed to eventuate. Demo, schmemo. Big deal. Whereas, a plastic eating bacteria—now that was really something!

The meeting broke up and Jerry hurried home alone. He couldn't bear to wait now, for school and the laboratory. He'd put some plastic in the jar tonight and see what happened. And if, for some unexplained reason, the plastic was still there in the morning, he'd throw away the jar and accept that he'd made a mistake.

The house was dark when he reached home. He slipped quietly upstairs to his room without waking anyone. The jar was where he had left it, sitting in the middle of his desk. Carefully he unscrewed the lid and pushed a couple of plastic bags down inside, then screwed the lid back on tightly. He stared at it for several minutes but nothing seemed to be happening. With a small sigh, he put the jar on his desk and went to bed.

And in the morning, the jar was empty, except for the paper-covered metal tie.

Jerry picked up the jar and tilted it. Not quite empty—there was a small amount of brownish dust at the bottom. Was that all that remained of the plastic? He wondered whether the dust would be enough to eat plastic by itself, without needing to be near the tie. He smiled. There was enough dust to conduct a few small experiments on his way to school.

He unscrewed the lid and carefully tipped the dust into a much smaller jar, leaving the tie alone in the original jar to take along to the school laboratory.

Jerry gulped down his breakfast, and rushed out of the house, for once eager to get to school. He had the jar with the tie stored safely in his bag and carried the small jar in his hand.

As he walked, he tipped a small amount of dust into each overflowing rubbish bin. There was enough plastic in there, drink bottles, straws, food wrappings, so that he should see a noticeable difference on his way home. When it was empty, he put the lid on the jar and stored it away in his school bag.

Ms Rogers was surprised to see Jerry standing outside the science laboratory, ten minutes before the lesson was due to commence. He looked excited.

"Jerry? What can I do for you?" she asked, unlocking the door.

"I've something important to show you, Miss," he answered, following her in and scrabbling around in his bag at the same time. He pulled out a jar with a paper covered tie inside. "I discovered this at the recycling plant," he continued, words tumbling out on top of each other. "It eats plastic!"

"What does?" asked Ms Rogers, bewildered.

"The bacterium, inside the jar!" explained Jerry. "Look. I'll show you," he added, pulling a plastic bag from his pocket. He unscrewed the lid and pushed the bag down inside the jar. "Now, we might have to wait a bit."

Ms Rogers and Jerry both looked at the jar, Ms Rogers with a rather uneasy expression on her face. Nothing seemed to be happening. "If this is some sort of joke, Jerry-"

"Look!" Jerry interrupted. "See? It's disappearing!"

Ms Rogers frowned. "Jerry! Did you have some acid in there?"

"No, Miss," Jerry shook his head. "Just the tie. It must have picked up the bacteria from the recycling plant." He pressed the jar into her reluctant hand. "There! See for yourself. Nothing except the tie."

Ms Rogers tipped the jar one way and then the other. There was no trace of any liquid, like there should have been if there was acid in the jar. And the plastic bag had now disappeared entirely. She squinted. There appeared to be a tiny bit of brown dust in the bottom. Could Jerry really have found a plastic-eating bacteria? No, that was impossible, surely! Too science fiction... wasn't it?

They needed more tests. But proper tests this time, in a controlled environment. An image of people in white hazmat suits popped into her head. Just opening the jar might have released bacteria into the air.

She felt torn. If Jerry was right she had something world changing in her hand, but if he wasn't, she risked making a colossal fool of herself.

Jerry was standing there, waiting for her reaction.

Ms Rogers chewed her bottom lip for a moment and then reached a decision. "Come on Jerry, we'll take this to the head master. We might need to refer this on to some experts."

Jerry was reluctant to surrender his jar, but he didn't have much choice.

"If it is what you think it is, I'm sure the CSIRO will be in touch with you," Ms Rogers reassured him.

Jerry hadn't heard anything further by the time school finished for the day. He wondered morosely whether the Head had even bothered to refer the jar on to the CSIRO, or whether it was still sitting in his study.

He walked home, bad temperedly kicking the rubbish down the footpath ahead of him. For such a great start, he'd had a shit of a day. He'd opened his locker to discover some arsehole had stolen his nylon back pack (though they'd left the contents) and his favourite hoodie, and now, his mobile phone seemed to have stopped working. Well at least he could check whether his experiments with the rubbish bins had worked. Brows creased, he stopped at where the first bin should have been, but it had gone. There was just a pile of papers and food scraps on the ground. WTF? Who would steal a damn rubbish bin?

He looked down the road and discovered the same thing a hundred metres away. A trickle of cold ran down his spine. Plastic. The bins had been made of plastic. Hard plastic, true, but plastic nevertheless.

Jerry swallowed. Now that he thought of it, he seemed to remember that nylon was a form of plastic. And so was polyester. His heart pounding, he took out his phone and tried to turn it on. The screen stayed blank.

But phones were made of metal... right?