It is the day before Earth Day at Bikini Bottom and all the citizens are celebrating it by recycling to save the Earth. At SpongeBob's house, Gary is helping SpongeBob recycle. Squidward is using a vacuum-like machine that sucks the recyling and blows it out into his recycling bin. Patrick's recycling in his recycling bin is a large pile because he didn't take it to the recycling center. SpongeBob helps Patrick with that. After taking the recycling to the recycling center, he goes to work at the Krusty Krab. While he is gives a Krabby Patty to Patrick, Mr. Krabs comes to them and gives them a job to put recycling in their recycling bins. The recycling bins were out back next to the dumpster. SpongeBob is wearing a gasmask and Patrick is wearing a clothespin on his nose to protect them from the smell of the dumpster. SpongeBob can't see out of the gasmask with the garbage fumes. So he accidentally puts the recycling in the dumpster and then puts the garbage from the dumpster with the recycling into the truck that goes to the recycling center. The next day, it is Earth Day. Everyone is even more busy with recycling than yesterday. The paperboy gives Squidward his newspaper. Squidward was looking forward to reading his newspaper, but he can't read it because most of it is covered in garbage. Nat Peterson is shopping for some cans of soup. He gets to the soup aisle, but some of the cans were covered in garbage too. At the Krusty Krab, Mr. Krabs has ordered new pickle jars, since his employees keep slipping over the spilled pickle juice and break some of them. The pickle jar delivery truck arrives, but most of the jars are covered in garbage. Mr. Krabs was confused, but then put the clean pickle jars in the kitchen. Patrick bursts into the Krusty Krab and takes SpongeBob outside. The sea was polluted. SpongeBob knew that he had mixed the recycling with the garbage and runs into the Krusty Krab and tells everyone about it. Everyone starts panicking and coughing. Some fish were taken to the hospital. Mr. Krabs sends SpongeBob outside and says that he should fix the problem since it was his responsibility. SpongeBob doesn't know what to do about it and he and Patrick can't breathe in it. Gary and Sandy come along with them. They go onto the island. SpongeBob tells Sandy that it was an accident because he couldn't see out of the gasmask because of the garbage fumes. SpongeBob, Patrick, Sandy, and Gary were thinking about what they should do about it. Sandy gets an idea. They will build a giant vacuum to suck up all the pollution in Bikini Bottom, and then put the garbage and the recycling into their seperate containers. So SpongeBob, Patrick, and Sandy build the vacuum. Gary helps by giving SpongeBob tools to make the vacuum. Meanwhile, down at Bikini Bottom, everyone is still panicking about the pollution. SpongeBob, Patrick, Sandy, and Gary send the vacuum down into the sea and it sucks up all of the pollution out of it. Then it sucks the garbage and recycling, seperates it, and then blows them out to their seperate containers. SpongeBob, Patrick, Sandy, and Gary jump back down in Bikini Bottom. The citizens cheer for them. They are heroes. The mayor of Bikini Bottom gives SpongeBob, Patrick, Sandy, and Gary gold medals and they are given jobs to recycle the streets with the citizens. SpongeBob is happy that they became heroes and get to recycle with the citizens.
Trivia
- This episode was based on a scene from The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water, when SpongeBob goes crazy after Plankton insults him and starts mixing garbage with recycling.