September 8, 2020

by drplasticpicker

I can’t sleep, or maybe it’s that I got up too early. It’s 3AM and a good 1-2 hours before I usually get up. California is literally burning. We have no rain in sight. Colorado is burning as well, although they may have snow soon. Do you remember last year when Australia was up in flames and koalas were dying? Did you wonder what the Australians were feeling like? What were they doing? Well that is us now. Literally in flames. It’s an interesting dynamic being Dr. Plastic Picker right now. For the last year, I’ve essentially done a mini-fellowship on environmental action. I have picked up #277 bags of ocean plastic pollution and salvaged now #1030 items in the process. And in the process of blogging and healing my body and mental health through plogging (picking up plastic and jogging) along the beach, I saw the state of the world most mornings. I finally looked around me and understood the broken food system that caused umpteenth tons of plastic to flow into our ocean, food that has very little nutrient value, while returning to clinic and seeing an entire generation of children with more obesity-related diseases. I try to gather plastic before it enters in the ocean because I know that the oceans absorb gigatons of carbon dioxide, while at the same time seeing my patients back at clinic who are mostly brown and black children suffer increasing rates of asthma from toxic air pollution. And as my body and mind healed from plogging and being out at the beach in the early mornings, I saw the stark reality of how sick our earth was. I decided to go all in to do my part to save the earth.

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September 7, 2020

by drplasticpicker

Last night I had an irritating interaction regarding my finances. I will deal with it and the person today, and it will be fine. I am very detail oriented and for various reasons the interaction was the utmost annoyance. But the power of exercise and good deeds is amazing. After that irritating interaction, I joined the family for the National Parks Trekking game, still irritated. I went to sleep last night, still irritated. Woke up this morning, still irritated. Edited some older blogposts while drinking coffee and started this weeks Hopeful Wednesday post early, mildly less irritated. And then I went for an epic plogging run and picked up two bags of plastic pollution and I feel great! I finally ran to a barren area that is mostly gopher holes (which is good because we need gophers right?) and cleaned that area. I also spread a packet of wildflower seeds that are supposed to “Bring Home the Butterflies.”

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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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