My Trashy Hobby

Hands down my favorite part of the day is riding my bike to the gym and back. It’s about 6 miles round trip and the perfect way to warm up and cool down after class. And I have to say, the Florida weather this time of year is perfect as I smoothly cycle under the shaded trees and past the flowering bougainvillea.

I’m enjoying myself so much in fact that I decided to share some of my love with the universe. And so I’ve started picking up trash along the way. That’s right. I’m now a one-woman mobile neighborhood trash collector.

I figure as I’m riding by on my bike I can jump off for thirty seconds and throw the tidbits of garbage strewn on the sidewalk in my basket. It adds all of 5 minutes to my commute to the gym – 10 minutes total to do a bit of neighborhood beautification.

Mostly it’s just regular debris I find: a Diet Coke can, plastic baggies, fast food containers, cigarette packets. There also seems to be a Bud Light Litter Bug in the area ‘cause there are multiple cans tossed about fairly often. I find it curious that this person is calorie conscious, but not environmentally conscious. I would like to have a word with him (or her).

What I like most about my trashy hobby is that I’ve found a way to easily give a few minutes of my time every day. It’s so simple to go about my everyday business, spy a piece of trash, pick it up and throw it away. The simplicity of it all is very satisfying somehow. As in, I can’t solve all the problems in the world, but I can certainly take care of a few bits of garbage.

Now, lest you think, I some kind of anti-trash angel, I’m not. I leave the dog poop bags where they sit. I’m good, but not that good.

Tags: trash

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 9th, 2014 and is filed under Hearth.