Wow. This post really should be a year-in-review. An entire year of litter picking which includes street cleaning and beach plogging run, with the immediate goal of reducing ocean plastic pollution and the lofty goal of trying to save the planet. In total I’ve picked up 273 bags of ocean plastic pollution and salvaged 1006 items from the ocean https://drplasticpicker.com/plastic-picking-round-up/. I’m also mentally and physically healthier, and still working in health care middle-management. I’ve already made a big fuss about my Dr. Plastic Picker birthday, as Dr. Dear Friend bought me a birthday cake and I posted on the blog and my own personal facebook page. I keep spreadsheets of two things, our financial spreadsheet and our networth and the amount of bag of plastic that I have gathered. Both are very important to me, as I have stated before I am FISE (Financially Independent to Save the Earth) https://drplasticpicker.com/the-road-to-fise-financial-independence-to-save-the-earth/.

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September 2, 2020

by drplasticpicker

An unexpected gift of embarking on Dr. Plastic Picker a year ago is the mentors I have gained along this journey. Dr. Lori Byron is one of my environmental mentors that I met through the American Academy of Pediatrics. She leads the national group of pediatric climate advocates that represents all our states and territories, and corrals our group toward national action on climate change. Dr. Lori Byron is past president of the Montana AAP Chapter, and spent most of her career practicing in the Indian Health Service. She is semi-retired now, and spends most of her time coordinating climate action within our profession. But most importantly, she is encouraging and kind and experienced. She has guided me through my fits and starts on climate activism. I sometimes feel like a college freshman, emailing her our small wins and awaiting words of encouragement via email. Most importantly, she is so cool! Here she is in the picture above biking in the Arctic Circle.

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September 3, 2020

by drplasticpicker

We have four cars and three drivers in our household. Our 2006 Honda Odyssey Touring Edition Minivan has less than 80,000 miles on it. We don’t really have a need for it anymore. Owning this extra car takes up mental headspace. We pay the insurance. We pay the DMV fee. My father-in-law has to think about driving it once in a while so the battery does not die. I keep on offering the minivan to others to borrow, as it’s an asset that has definite value. It’s a wonderful car. It’s just we don’t need it but we own it.

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September 2, 2020

by drplasticpicker

I am overdue to write this month’s Plastic Picking totals post https://drplasticpicker.com/plastic-picking-round-up/ and August’s Secondary Environmental Net Positives. I have a reasonable goal of 20 bags a month. This month I hit closer to 35 due to some big items left at several beach bonfires. I think I’ve salvaged over 100 items that were recycled or going to the GoodWill. There was a pair of gray vintage shoes that were still in a shoebox. I found reusable masks that are now regifted to other friends or upcycled as a office display on our daughter’s colorful and sparkly Build a Bear. I laundered them all twice. But I will write those post later this week because today is Wednesday (Hump Day) and I think everyone needs a bit of hope today!

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September 1, 2020

by drplasticpicker

Extra Crunchy Skippy Super Chunk. Ingredients Roasted Peanuts, Sugar, Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil (Cottonseed, Soybean, and Rapeseed Oi) to prevent separation, salt. <1> Recyclable plastic, but who really recycles it? Does municipal recycling actually do it? But what has bothered me for decades since I learned that Palm Oil is the cause of so much deforestration in Indonesia is the orangatangs. Orangatangs live in the rainforest where Palm Oil Plantations are proliferating. Palm Oil is in 50% of all consumer products in the grocery store. I’m not sure why, but our peanut butter is what has always bothered me the most.

But then I learned to make peanut butter! Here is my post where I talked mostly about my own personal finance plans but also how easy it was to make peanut butter. https://drplasticpicker.com/the-road-to-fise-so-easy-homemade-peanut-butter/ I know this is being cross-published in our clinic BOTAY newsletter, but remember this is Dr. Plastic Picker’s blog so I can talk about myself as much as I want. Indeed this is the 300th post on my blog where I mostly talked about myself (and the earth).

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August 31, 2020

by drplasticpicker

FISE stands for Financial Independence Save the Earth. I coined this phrase on New Year’s Eve 2019 https://drplasticpicker.com/fise-financial-indepedence-and-save-the-earth/. Since then I’ve written almost twenty blogs with this term. Maybe if I blog about it enough, it will become mainstream. Did you know that I am technically a Physician Personal Finance Blogger? I am included on Crispy Doc’s blogroll and the requirement is to have at least one new blog regarding personal finance every 3 months https://drplasticpicker.com/the-road-to-fise-financial-independence-to-save-the-earth/. This is an easy requirement for me. Since I am the daughter of an accountant and Financially Independent myself, I think of the world in terms of fiscal responsibility and dollars and cents. It’s just how I am wired.

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August 30, 2020

by drplasticpicker

Today is Dr. Plastic Picker’s birthday today! I feel like celebrating more than my real birthday. The day I came into the world, it was really my mom doing all the work. Dr. Plastic Picker’s birthday was my creation. Since I have been keeping track and declared that I am “Fighting Ocean Plastic Pollution One Piece of Plastic At a Time,” I have picked up 272 bags of ocean bound trash and salvagaed 1003 items.

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August 27, 2020

by drplasticpicker

I did not realize what a big deal last night’s climate win was. Solana Beach, a small northern coastal city, passed unanimously a Climate Emegency Declaration yesterday. The Solana Beach’s Climate Action Committee lead Dr. Mary Yang had been working on this with the city council members for months and maybe years. They had reached out to us as healthcare professionals to give comment. Yesterday, I called in with as one of four members of our Public Health Advisory Council for Climate Action Campaigns and gave public testiomy as a pediatrician.

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August 26, 2020

by drplasticpicker

This Wednesday kind of crept up on me. Since we went on a short trip to Palm Springs and returned on Monday, Tuesday seemed like Monday and Wednesday seemed like Tuesday. But the reality is that it is Wednesday. I realized that yesterday and knowing I needed to write this Hopeful Wednesday post lifted my spirits. My spirit is generally good these days, but the California Wildfires and the annoyance of the RNC nominating convention that I’m trying to actively ignore depresses my spirits a bit. But then one of our pediatric nurses sent this image to me of an upcycled trash art piece “Rainbow Fish” that she completed with her daughter. It is indeed beautiful and trash art gives me hope. Because through Trash Art, I have learned to look at the world a little bit differently.

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August 25, 2020

by drplasticpicker

I really wanted to blog about my “new to me” sewing machine. My sister handed it down to me last Christmas. We had a magical family vacation up in Park City, Utah where we were able to be together for a long time. Especially now that our home state and Utah are being scorched by wildfires and I haven’t seen my sister since Christmas, it was a magical snowy memory https://drplasticpicker.com/how-did-our-greener-christmas-go-10-ways-we-changed/. We snow-shoed through Utah’s Aspen forest, and I learned how Aspen forest are one living organism connected through their roots. The forest talked to me that day.

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