Far North man Carl Schischka, who claimed earlier this year to have picked up his one millionth discarded bottle, many of them in the Far North, was a little taken aback recently when some visitors told him of a collection he had overlooked.
"They told me to go and have a look at the kauri stumps at Lake Ohia, so I did," he said. And he wasn't surprised to find scores of empty beer bottles.
Mr Schischka, who has long been advocating that bottles be given a return value by the manufacturer to spare the environment, and to address the increasing hazard of bare feet coming into contact with broken glass at beauty spots all over the the country, had also been to Pukenui, where he found a much smaller collection that he displayed for posterity where Lamb Creek enters Houhora Harbour.
"If glass was valuable people wouldn't throw it away," he said.
"If every bottle was worth a dollar people would be breaking their necks to find them and cash them in."
Meanwhile this was his parting shot, of a sort. He was now packing his bags and heading south, but promised to be back in the New Year.
