- Kwame: The problem is too big. And people will never change.
- [starts to cry]
- Kwame: I have failed.
- Gaia: [appears] Hello, Kwame.
- Kwame: Hello, Gaia.
- [sniffs]
- Kwame: How did you find me?
- Gaia: I knew you would go to a forest when you needed to think.
- Kwame: I think very soon *this* forest will be buried in garbage.
- Gaia: I know things look bad, but you see the scar on this old tree? It almost died in a fire years ago. It did not give up. It kept on growing. Look around. The forest is full of reasons for hope.
- Kwame: I was wrong. And Sludge was right; people just do not care.
- Ma-Ti: You must not say that. Captain Planet will deal with Sludge.
- Kwame: [sighs; morosely] Very well, Ma-Ti. Let out powers combine. Earth...
- [his ring glows and hums weakly then dies down and emits smoke, he cries as the others stare in shock]
- Gi: Kwame, what's wrong?
- Kwame: I will *tell* you what is wrong! This problem is too big for even Captain Planet! It is hopeless.
- Gaia: [appearing] Kwame, you must not give up hope. That is the source of your root of power.
- Kwame: Then it is too late, Gaia. How I can believe in people when they turn their own world into a trash-dump?
- [removes his ring]
- Kwame: You must give this to someone else. It does not work for me anymore.
- [tosses it in the air, it vanishes with a flash that briefly blocks Gaia's image before she is seen again, looking pained]
- Sly Sludge: [on monitor, singing out of tune] If the trash is overflowing from your can, I will dump it for a fee, 'cause I'm the man... who flies the big sky scowls! Gonna find a dump somehow! I'm Sly Sludge! I'm Sly Sludge! I'm Sly Sludge!
- Gi: [at the Planeteer Alert, taking place in a grocery store] Most everything we buy will some day be thrown away.
- Ma-Ti: So try to buy things that can be reused or recycle.
- Linka: Lots of packaging material may make something look better on the store shelf, but it doesn't make a better product.
- Kwame: More packaging only means more garbage in overflowing landfills.
- Grocer: Paper or plastic?
- Wheeler: Save it. We brought our own.
- Captain Planet: The power is yours!