A USEFUL EXERCISE
I’m sure that those of you who actually remember who I am, will also recall seeing me walking every day around Martinborough’s lovely streets. At the same time, I developed a bit of a reputation for what can be called plawking.
To be fair, I made that word up. Plawking is my version of the more familiar plogging – Picking up Litter while jOGGING, that is. As my running skills resemble that of an ageing duck, I had to compromise, but still considered it a useful exercise, on both counts.
It’s a difficult habit to break, but anyway, why would you? It’s both exercise, and useful, after all. So now I’m living here in Dunedin, and still walkng daily; nowadays down my street and through a section of Town Belt; I thought I would turn my continued plawking habit into a small story for you.
The distance down (and back up) is about 900m, with the majority of it through native bush. It’s pretty tidy in general, although there’s the odd bag of uneaten chips now and then which I strew under the trees for the birds. Sometimes a half-eaten hamburger, which meets the same fate.
But back to the story, which also involves some maths: another useful exercise, of course. For one thing, almost every day I come across one or two empty Bourbon and Cola cans.The label usefully reveals each can once contained [yep, always empty!] 330ml of drink, which is ‘7% alc/vol’. Back home, with the calculator; I worked out that this seven mls of ethanol in every 100; when multiplied by 3.3, equals 24ml per can, give or take, allowing for the final drops one annoyingly can’t get out through the hole. At around 600[!] cans per year on average, that’s about 15 litres of pure alcohol; never mind the cola, which has a bit of a dubious reputation healthwise and all.
I conscientiously squash the cans and carry them home for the wheelie bin. The next day: walk, collect, repeat, as the saying goes. Sadly someone appears to have a drinking problem, and I’m a bit worried the rubbish guys emptying my bin into the bowels of their truck think it’s me! Maybe I should pop out and reassure them, but that’s far too complicated and definitely not a useful exercise.
Part two of this plawking tale has a happier note. Further up the street there’s nearly always the peel of a fresh orange in the gutter. I’m pretty certain it’s from someone else; a person more concerned about staying healthy with their recommended five-a-day and combining it with a bit of useful exercise as well.
And for me, much better than the booze cans with having a compost bin at home. The peel gets chopped into small pieces and added to the avocado skins [from a previous column, just saying.] This poses considerably less of a recycling problem, and I’m not worried about what the worms are thinking, because they don’t, I’m sure.
And that’s enough useful exercise for this month. We’ll catch up again in October.
