December 12, 2019
by drplasticpicker
It seems counter-intuitive, but sometimes our family chooses “to do nothing” in order to do something. Last spring, I was lucky to accompany our hospital’s residency program on a trip to the Andes Mountains in Peru. I was able to fulfill one of my dreams as the attending pediatrician and helped >400 children of the indigenous Quechuan people. It was a trip and 2 weeks that I will never forget.
December 11, 2019
by drplasticpicker
This is the third post in this weekly series. Five reasons to be Hopeful, has become a favorite part of blogging for me. Every day brings another dire ecological warning. Then when I read other frivolous news stories, I despair thinking why are not others panicking? But then I look back at my Plastic Picking Totals https://drplasticpicker.com/plastic-picking-round-up/and Donations Page https://drplasticpicker.com/donation-round-up/– and I realize that all I can do is move forward bag by bag, day by day, blogpost by blogpost. This is how things are achieved and I have hope. Eternal hope.
December 10, 2019
by drplasticpicker
The above stainless steel water bottles were personalized by Dr. JP who teaches multiple levels of advanced physics at a local high school. When I saw these pictures on his Facebook Feed, I immediately asked him if I could use them for this blog and he was kind enough to readily agree. He wrote, “I think in 20 years, we will all look back on how much plastic and styrofoam we used and think, ‘What in the hell were we thinking?!? A disposable bottle every time we got thirsty?’ ” Indeed Dr. JP, you are so wise.
December 9, 2019
by drplasticpicker
When I started blogging at drplasticpicker.com, it was the same time that the “Who Gives A Crap?” http://whogivesacrap.org/toilet paper Facebook ads were popping up. It was a very cute slightly chubby brown haired woman shashaying with a big carboard box with the catchy yet slightly profane name, “Who Gives a Cr@p?” (I put the @ in for a, it doesn’t seem right to write even a slightly bad word in a pediatric blog). I was never shy, so after only writing 10 blog posts and maybe a few hundred page views – I emailed their company asking for free toilet paper samples. I was already thinking about switching to a more sustainble toilet paper alternative anyway.
Dr. Plastic Picker is a “A Personal Plastic-Picking Blog: Fighting Ocean Plastic Pollution One Piece At a Time .” Staying true to this mission, I am here to work against the tide of plastic pollution. The day I found those 9 sunglasses and Humanized My Little Pony Plastic Toy Figure, was literally a wave of plastic washed onto the shores of the half mile of Pacific Ocean coast that I transverse. There were four local residents of our town who just happened to be on the beach that morning also, and we turned to each other. We knew each other because we see eachother on the beaches in the mornings usually in our own contemplative worlds. But that morning we held heavy clothing items together that were weighed down by seaweed, sand and ocean water. These items required two people to carry them the long stretch to the trash bins. Together we heaved those items into the bins. And those 9 sunglasses above we collected in the little pile together.
December 7, 2019
by drplasticpicker
It has started. It is December 7, 2019. Eighteen more days until Christmas and now commences the mad rush. I feel it at clinic. Parents have that dazed look in their eyes as I ask them how things are going. Work, school and family social demands pile up. Dr. Plastic Picker went to my first work holiday party last night. I tried to deliver good comprehensive care to my 28th patient of the day who tested positive for Influenzae A, and still make it to a 6pm work party that was 45 minute drive away. I failed. Took care of the family first, which is always the right thing to do. I rushed home to cleanse my face and my blepharitis-plaqued eyes, put on a clean layer of foundation and pencil in my eyebrows that disappeared in the late 90s. Arrived there at 650pm. Tis the season.
December 7, 2019
An original poem by Charlotte, age 8.
Pollutes the Earth
Littered all over the beach.
Always there.
Strong but dangerous.
Takes up space.
Icky to the core.
Creates trash.
Another poem for the same poetess entitled “HELP” https://drplasticpicker.com/help/
December 6, 2019
by drplasticpicker
I had great fun being interviewed by our local paper the PB Monthly. Savannah Duffy, the journalist, phone interviewed me twice and we exchanged several emails. I got to tell our nursing staff and my clinic friends in great fun, “I can’t go to lunch because I have an interivew this afternoon.” She even asked to record the interivew and I was so intrigued that she asked my permission! But in this whole plastic picking and blogging adventure, this PB Monthly interview was a high point and will give me energy to keep on going!
December 4, 2019
by drplasticpicker
Mr. Plastic Picker had a headache last night. He was sitting in front of his middle management home office with spreadsheets open on multiple screens, pencil in hand with physical spreadsheets of names and numbers in front of him, and making tallies. “I have a headache,” he told me. “I’ve been getting about two a week.” He had thought perhaps it was his new eyeglass prescription and had gone to the optometrist a few times to double check, and his eyes seem better. But he is still getting headaches.
December 4, 2019
by drplasticpicker
I went to a large middle management meeting, and climate change was front and center. As a large health care organization in Southern California, we are getting ready. There have been 17 active wildfires in California in October 2019, 94,000 acres burned, and 129 million dead tress. We discussed extreme heat events, and that the last 8 out of 10 hottest years have been this last decade. Heat related illness cause more deaths annually than all other extreme weather events. We looked at color coded maps that estimate the increasing reach of Dengue fever. And that climate change drives increased domestic violence, child abuse/neglect, mental illness exacerbations and suicide attemtps and completions.
