Month: September 2020

September 20, 2020

by drplasticpicker

Mr. Plastic Picker and I went to Costco for the first time in months together. Since becoming the Plastic Picker family and trying to reduce our plastic consumption compounded with the COVID-19 pandemic and social distancing requirements, we have reduced the things that we bring home. I have salvaged over 1000 things from the landfill mostly aluminum cans. The 1057 items I have salvaged, I try to recycle, regift, repurpose or donate. I have three bags today going to GoodWill of salvaged shoes and clothes that have been cleaned. The answer it not to wishfully donate our things away, because much of it also will end up in the landfill. The answer for our family has mostly been to slow down the things that flow into our home.

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September 18, 2020

by drplasticpicker

I started my first batch of apple-scrap vinegar yesterday. We had a bunch of mushy apples and Mr. Plastic Picker asked me the day before if I could make apple sauce. If you know us in real life, this is a earth-shattering request. My children and other people eat my cooking. My son’s good friend once complimented me on my breaded chicken. But my husband wanders around the kitchen foraging on his own. The more I’ve been cooking plant-based, the more he is eating. He asked for apple sauce and he used to buy so many of those prepared apple sauces in <5> plastic. Since we’ve started going less plastic, he eats more apples but I think he misses those processed apple sauces. He actually says mine is better.

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September 17, 2020

by drplasticpicker

I’m making cornbread this morning and I’m crying. It was supposed to be a vegan cornbread recipe, but I don’t have vegan butter nor non-dairy milk. I substituted real butter and real milk which pretty much just makes it cornbread. It’s not even imperfectly vegan cornbread. It’s definitely non-plastic at least. I’m not crying because it’s not vegan, I’m crying because I’m thinking about a really close friend that loves to cook. I wish I could call and text her as often as I used to about how much I’ve grown in my cooking. For various reasons our friendship has been one of those wonderful yet sometimes painful pairings. But anyway, I just miss my friend. I miss her when I cook and when I meet these milestones. The reason why is that she is a phenomenol and intuitive cook, and she knew me before I could cook. And she actually taught me a lot of things about cooking and life. We will just leave it at that. We are better off where we are now in our relationship, still true friends but more distant. I can’t believe I’m crying. This plastic picking and journey of discovery is literally making me process decades worth of issues. We all got issues. I’m just doing my own therapy through this blog in front of everyone.

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September 16, 2020

by drplasticpicker

Above is a picture of my first born putting on his own shoes. For various reasons, I am very proud that he is able to do that and that he gets out the door by himself without assistance. Sometimes all of us just watch him leave from the porch: his grandmother, his grandfather, the puppy and myself. His sister was still sleeping because she had virtual school yesterday. He got to the car all by himself without any assistance, and his father (Mr. Plastic Picker) drove him to his fancy prep school in the family’s red Prius. They listen to NPR on the way to school. His breakfast was a vegan sausage and broccolli sauteed with some vegetable broth, and a piece of Dave’s Killer Wheat Bread which is palm-oil free. With that, he was sent forth into his teenage world hopefully avoiding COVID-19.

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September 15, 2020

by drplasticpicker

Above was bag #283 and item #1050 was a flattened alumnium can on the road. I oddly really like recycling those aluminum cans because I figure no one else will. Of those items, 483 have been aluminum cans. I only did an analysis on aluminum cans called “Aluminum Cans: The High Yield Salvagable” https://drplasticpicker.com/aluminum-cans-the-high-yield-salvagable/. At that point I was only at 150 aluminum cans. But even at 150 cans, I realized how high-yield it was to pick those on my walks especially the flattened ones that probably no one else would recycle.  I have always been fascinated by the idea of efficiency. So as drplasticpicker, I want to help the earth but do it in an efficient manner. Remember of the 100 billion aluminum cans sold in the US, only half are recycled. So every year there are 50 billion aluminum cans that never make it back. Recycling one aluminum can is enough to power a television for 3 hours. Therefore 1050 aluminum cans, I could watch Star Trek Enterprise straight for 131 days. But I can watch it anyway since we have solar panels that produce double the energy we use (yes I went a bit overboard). The best thing about aluminum cans is that they are endlessly recycle them.

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September 14, 2020

by drplasticpicker

When I started this journey of climate activism and picking up ocean plastic pollution a year ago, I never thought that writing would be my way to make a difference. I began blogging at 4am this morning, earlier than I usually do. I had to work yesterday at Pediatric After Hours Clinic and it was a relatively quiet and fun shift. I did pick up a hip click that two other doctors missed so I felt good about that. But anytime my schedule is a bit off – my sleep is disrupted. Writing like ocean plastic picking tends to quiet my mind. I love the sound of the clicking on my key board. It makes me feel like I’m going somewhere, eventhough most mornings I’m just sitting at my kitchen table. The air purifier is running this morning and that is a stark reminder of our climate crisis. It’s been running all night and stable in the 30s PM 2.5 but when you open the door, it shoots up to the mid 50s. Before the wildfires began it was in the single-digits. My father-in-law is moving around the kitchen quietly making his coffee. It’s usullay just him and me in the mornings, and he tries to not make too much noise. I think he thinks I’m doing really important things on the computer, eventhough most of the time I’m writing nonsence. But the air purifier is running today and we will buy an additional one for him, because increased particulate matter and air pollution is associated with increased cardiac death in older adults.

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September 12, 2020

by drplasticpicker

Our internship program is closed! We have four AAP-CA3 Climate Change and Health Interns. I have to provide them with mentorship and guidance, and I can’t do it well if I have too many. So our internship program (which I just made up!) is closed. More candidates keep on coming out of the woodwork, but I tell them next year or the year after next we may have an opening. When one gets a job or gets into medical school, than a spot will open up. Sometimes when I wake in the morning, I’m not sure what to blog about. I half started two blog posts but deleted them. They were on environmental projects that are completed now, so really no need to write about them. So much of this blog is helping me figure out what to do next with the climate.

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September 11, 2020

by drplasticpicker

Yesterday was one of those discombobulating environmental work days. My post got published on KevinMD “It’s Time To Go All In on Climate Change,” https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2020/09/its-time-to-go-all-in-on-climate-action.html. Yet thus far, no shares. Hmmm. Half a million subscribers but no shares. Top Social Media Blog for Physicians yet the apathy on climate change in that virtual medical sphere is deafening. I agreed to do a podcast for KevinMD as well, so we shall see. Or maybe I’m just not the right messenger for that audience? I am who I am, so I’ll find another venue where I can try to activate more people.

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September 10, 2020

by drplasticpicker

I learned about the film “Gather” through Instagram friends https://gather.film/. It just was released a week ago and there is a review on the New York Times. But I heard about it on Instagram. There was a movie advertised heavily where Woody Harrelson and a super model married to Tom Brad (I forget her name, Giselle?) talk about regenerative agriculture. The movie trailer seemed very similar to 2040? I passed that one up. I think our world (and definitely for me) is past the point when Hollywood has any sort of moral authority. But then I heard the music from Raye Zaragosa and it reached me. Raye Zaragosa, folk singer with a hauntingly beautiful voice https://www.rayezaragoza.com/. She is Native American and Japanese, and I discovered her through her music as part of the new release on the film “Gather” which I watched last night. It is about fixing Native American food systems and centuries of systemic violence against the Native Americans. Took me to my mid-40s to find a musical artist that speaks to me.

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