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In this episode of The A to Z English Podcast, Jack talks about his love of recycling, reusing, and upcycling items that people have thrown away.
Transcript:
00:00:01
Jack
Welcome to The A to Z English podcast. My name is Jack and today I’m doing a solo episode and today’s topic is I love garbage.
00:00:15
Jack
And you’re probably thinking to yourself.
00:00:19
Jack
What are you talking about, Jack? Nobody loves garbage.
00:00:24
Jack
But recently.
00:00:27
Jack
I’m really into.
00:00:29
Jack
Recycling.
00:00:31
Jack
And.
00:00:32
Jack
Upcycling.
00:00:34
Jack
And reusing.
00:00:37
Jack
Objects that people don’t want anymore.
00:00:41
Jack
And.
00:00:43
Jack
Fixing them and using them myself.
00:00:47
Jack
And fixing items, selling them to make a little bit of profit or.
00:00:56
Jack
You know, giving items that I can’t use anymore to.
00:01:04
Jack
Friends or family that might you know, people that might.
00:01:06
Jack
Want those items?
00:01:08
Jack
So let me explain a little bit more of what I mean by I love garbage. It started about a year ago.
00:01:18
Jack
I I wanted to get into exercise and I used to exercise regularly, but during COVID coronavirus.
00:01:30
Jack
During that time I I stopped.
00:01:33
Jack
Going to the gym, I stopped exercising. I started eating unhealthy food and I started to gain weight and I’ve never really been able to go back to how I was before COVID before that time started.
00:01:54
Jack
And so I was in my neighborhood and I saw an exercise bicycle in the garbage. Uh, not not in a garbage can, but, you know, in the ready for the recyclers to take it and take it away and.
00:02:10
Jack
I thought to myself, I think this is a a pretty nice exercise bike. Uh, this is not a uh, a regular bicycle. This is an exercise bicycle, so a stationary bike stationary means it doesn’t move when you pedal, it just stays in the same place.
00:02:30
Jack
And lots of people have these in their houses, and I noticed that there was one problem with this stationary bike. The handlebars kept the handlebars are the the things you hold on to while you’re pedaling and they kept they were loose. They kept falling forward.
00:02:51
Jack
And.
00:02:53
Jack
I thought to myself, I think I can fix this and so I brought it home.
00:02:58
Jack
I took out my tools and Long story short I fixed it and now it’s a perfectly good.
00:03:06
Jack
Exercise bicycle and I got it for free. You know, usually you have to pay $100 or hundreds of dollars for these kinds of exercise machines.
00:03:19
Jack
However.
00:03:20
Jack
I got mine for free.
00:03:23
Jack
And so I have an an extra room in in our building, there’s a an extra room that we have. My wife and I have turned into a kind of a gym, a a home exercise center.
00:03:38
Jack
And so I put the bicycle in there.
00:03:41
Jack
And about a week later.
00:03:43
Jack
Sure.
00:03:44
Jack
I saw a bench, an exercise bench where you can do sit-ups and a sit up is where you you go back, you’re on your back and then you lift up and you use your stomach muscles, your abdominal muscles to pull yourself up. And it was perfectly good except it was missing.
00:04:05
Jack
Once.
00:04:06
Jack
I went to the hardware store, I bought a screw for $1.00.
00:04:11
Jack
And I fixed that and I put that in my exercise room.
00:04:15
Jack
And then.
00:04:17
Jack
I found another piece of exercise equipment perfectly fine. Someone was throwing it away because they were. They were moving out of their apartment and I live in a neighborhood with a lot of apartments, a lot of small apartments. So when people don’t want items, they just.
00:04:36
Jack
Throw them away instead of because they don’t even want to take the time to give them away or to sell them. They just throw them away.
00:04:44
Jack
So I took it, I took it home.
00:04:46
Jack
And I’ve I’ve now got this like little gym kind of set up. And my wife there’s a a website in Korea where people give away items that they don’t want. And someone was giving away a running machine. So we drove over to their apartment. We put the running machine.
00:05:07
Jack
In our car, in our truck, and brought it back, put it in the exercise room. So now the gym has.
00:05:14
Jack
It was a running machine, an exercise bike, a sit up bench, some weights and things like that. So it kind of started with like I I’m starting to see that like in Korea, I think it’s because people live in apartments, they just don’t often take the time to.
00:05:35
Jack
Even sell things, they just they just throw them away.
00:05:38
Jack
And the other day I was walking along the street and I saw a guitar. So in a case someone had just.
00:05:47
Jack
Put a guitar.
00:05:48
Jack
In the garbage.
00:05:50
Jack
And I went and opened it up.
00:05:52
Jack
And it was a perfectly good guitar.
00:05:55
Jack
And I threw it in my truck and I brought it home.
00:06:00
Jack
And I looked at it, I didn’t have to do any fixing of the guitar. It was perfectly good. And so I have an extra guitar cause I kind of collect guitars. I’m a guitar player and I love that hobby. And so I I brought it home and.
00:06:21
Jack
I just now I’m kind of in the mindset of like, why buy something new?
00:06:27
Jack
When?
00:06:29
Jack
People are giving away or throwing away.
00:06:33
Jack
Old things that are still could be good for for me. So we have an expression in English.
00:06:40
Jack
One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.
00:06:46
Jack
And for me, it’s more of an environmental.
00:06:50
Jack
Read there. It’s more environmental for me to be honest, because a lot of these things, they just end up being thrown into a hole in the ground, like that exercise bike. Just the handlebars are were broken and they could be fixed, but no one is going to fix those.
00:07:07
Jack
They’re going to the the garbage men are going to take that. They’re going to throw that thing in the ocean or in a big hole in the ground, and it’s going to stay there for 1000 years.
00:07:19
Jack
And what is the purpose of making new things and buying new things when we have?
00:07:27
Jack
Older things that can just be fixed and used, and they’re perfectly fine and they don’t end up in a hole in the ground. You know polluting our our land or floating in the ocean, polluting our oceans.
00:07:43
Jack
I just really don’t understand, so I’m very much in the mindset of, like, not buying anything. If I need something, I try to find it online for free or I look around my neighborhood or and I fix something up and and use it. It might not be.
00:08:00
Jack
You know, my bicycle is not beautiful. It’s not the most beautiful stationary bike. It’s not going to win a beauty contest, but it works perfectly fine. It’s great for exercising the guitar. Yeah, it’s not a.
00:08:16
Jack
A A Les Paul or a Gibson, but it’s a it’s a perfectly fine guitar and I’m not. I’m not terrible guitar player to be honest. So for me I don’t need anything fancy or super expensive when it comes to those kinds of items. I can just enjoy.
00:08:37
Jack
Having different guitars that make that have different sounds and enjoy those things. And so I guess what I’m saying is going back to the beginning of my talk today is that when I say.
00:08:52
Jack
I love garbage.
00:08:54
Jack
I love.
00:08:55
Jack
Taking objects that are going to end up in a hole in the ground or in the ocean, and I like fixing them and using them, and it’s deeply satisfying. It’s more satisfying than like buying the item and bringing it home. If I give more joy out of finding something and it doesn’t cost me any money.
00:09:16
Jack
It costs me a little bit of time and a little bit of energy.
00:09:20
Jack
But it you know it, it saves money.
00:09:23
Jack
And and it’s and it’s. They’re all things that are that are making my life better. They’re making me healthier. The exercise bike is going to actually make me healthier, live longer. The guitar is going to give me joy because I I get joy from playing the guitar and making music. And so I just really.
00:09:43
Jack
Want to encourage?
00:09:46
Jack
You listeners out there to.
00:09:49
Jack
Love garbage like me.
00:09:52
Jack
And see if it doesn’t make you feel even more satisfied when you find some object that you’re able to repurpose and reuse instead of buying it new.
00:10:06
Jack
Alright, so that’s my talk today. Jack loves garbage.
00:10:11
Jack
Please, if you talk to social, explain what the meaning is, because she’s probably going to be surprised when she sees the title of this episode. I love garbage.
00:10:22
Jack
If you want to leave.
00:10:23
Jack
A message for us go to.
00:10:25
Jack
Send us an e-mail AZ englishpodcast@gmail.com. You can also go to our website azenglishpodcast.com and you can leave a comment on the website. You can join our WhatsApp group or our WeChat group and you can leave a comment there. We’d love to see you in the A-Z English WhatsApp group or WeChat group.
00:10:45
Jack
And with that said.
00:10:46
Jack
I will see you next time. Thanks everybody.
00:10:50
Jack
Bye bye.
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Intro/Outro Music: Daybird by Broke for Free