It was a long journey for us. Our spaceship was traveling through a wormhole on an expedition to explore distant exoplanets in search of life. There were four of us on board: I was the captain and my crew members were Jackson, Salma, and Kelly. We were in a high‑tech vessel capable of piercing through wormholes, a marvel of human engineering.

The voyage was arduous, but wormholes allowed us to traverse hundreds of light‑years in only a few years. One day, I was asleep when Kelly’s anxious yet joyous call jolted me awake. She shouted that our ship had reached a planet that appeared habitable. From orbit, we could see that it was covered in green, tree‑like structures, reminiscent of the forests that our own world once had before humanity destroyed its green cover and pushed itself toward collapse.

I ordered the crew to proceed with caution. For weeks we searched, but we found no signs of life. If there were trees, we reasoned that surely there must also be animals or other living forms. Yet our efforts remained fruitless. Finally, I decided to examine the trees. Jackson examined the trees. To our astonishment, they were not trees at all. They were artificial trees, constructed entirely of plastic like substance. The sight was beyond imagination. Plastic is a human creation, so we questioned who had planted these plastic forests, and in such vast quantities there?

We decided to leave. But as our ship’s engines roared to life, the plastic trees ignited. Flames spread rapidly and soon the entire planet was engulfed in fire. From a distance, we watched as the planet was burning. It was a haunting reminder of humanity’s legacy- plastic forests and plastic planets reducing to ash.