The footsteps of my friend’s 8-year-old son. Forging his own path on the beach during our recent beach cleaning.
It is day 72 of this ocean plastic picking journey, and I continue to find great joy and meaning in this new endeavor. As of today, I have picked up 65 bags of trash and salvaged 338 items. Yesteday, I was not able to reach the ocean because I had a full Friday clinic and things always run late, and with daylight savings by the time I got home at 615pm it was already pitch dark.
I have joined twitter. Why have I joined twitter? That is where the children are and the children are the ones that need to be protected and supported, and drplasticpicker is a pediatrician and a mother. I need to go protect the children. When Greta Thunberg gave her UN Speech and castigated the adults in the room, this battle-worn pediatrician had tears rolling down her eyes. What have we done? The children think of us as “Do Nothing Adults.” Indeed, it cannot be all Trump’s fault as he has only been president for 3 years. We were all here and we did nothing or did not do enough. Climate change is happening and we have 15 years to mitigate these changes. I am in my mid 40s, and I have until 60 to help.
Wandering along the beach is wonderful for the imagination. Children have the blank canvas of the surf and sand to create their fairytales. I then get to see the remnants of them on my walks. I make up stories in my imagination about who made these structures, and what stories and adventures occured within their walls.
Vaping device that is made to look like a flashdrive! Don’t be fooled parents.
To Vaping Companies,
My name is drplasticpicker and I am a real life board certified pediatrician who cares for 2000 children in Southern California. I also take regular walks along a half-mile stretch of the Pacific Ocean that borders a college student area. I pick up plastic debris before it goes into the ocean. In my over 60 walks along the beach, I find vaping pens, devices and caps every day.
I wanted to do a follow up post regarding the $8 I found on the beach two mornings ago. As my mother had suggested, we decided to use the found cash to buy food for the San Diego Food Bank. I told the kids I would match it with another $8. So those vague plans to donate it were filed in the back of my mind, and the cash left on the kitchen counter.
Today after school, I mentioned to my middle-school daughter that we could go ahead and see how much healthy/less plastic wrapped food we could get to help feed some needy San Diegans. She replied that she was caught up with her homework so we could go today. So off we went down Friars Road in our plug-in hybrid, off to Food4Less – bargain grocer.
$8 Cold Cash, it was literally very cold that morning.
I tend to find the most interesting things Sunday or Monday mornings if I go ocean plastic walking early. This last Monday, I left very early as I need to get my walk in and still get home in time to get breakfast ready and get the kids out of the house for school. I am lucky in that my father-in-law does the actual drop off. We are a multi-generational household. We take care of them financially, and they help us with some childcare. Yes, I know I am very lucky. And I have co-existed happily with my mother-in-law for almost 15 years with 1 kitchen. The first two years was really difficult for me, but the last 13 we are two peas in a pod for the most part. I think that tells you a lot about my character.
Anyway, Monday morning I saw several new sights. I saw another dead stingray with a portion of it’s midthorax missing. There must be some particuarly delicious organ there that birds like to eat? I’ll have to look that up. I saw a fishing type vessel very close to the shore. It was periously close to the surfers and I was worried for the surfers. I saw an older gentlemen who looked a bit like he was not quite all there, but well kempt and wearing a newish red LIFEGUARD sweater. I know you can buy those anywhere, but he had a large plastic bag and picking up trash but with an official-looking large clear bag. I wonder if that is what old retired lifeguards do? Anyway, we were close in proximity and I told him, “I saw a dead stingray over there! It’s the second one I’ve seen this week.” He wondered over to the direction I pointed and I yelled back, “Don’t pick it up though!” Then he wandered away in a different direction. I don’t think he was homeless. Dead stingray and possible lifeguard pensioner or well kempt homeless man? Sometimes I think God (I am not particualy religious but plastic picking has pushed me to become more spiritual) is leading me on this path.
What is plastic? What is real? What is fake? What is reality? A leatherback turtle figurine I bought at the local Goodwill for $19.99. Online these figurines go for $30. It has value and made of wood and stone. I think it is real.
Starting drplasticpicker and learning how to blog has been a fascinating experience. I started this blog because I wanted to share my journey of reconnecting with nature and health and to do something tangible for the world by picking up plastic trash. I have rediscovered my love of writing and creating.
But in learning the mechanics of blogging, I discovered that the world of the internet is half fake. My younger brother is a tech-savy millenial and helped me set up the blog, and has answered many of my questions and helped me download plug-ins and the google analytics programs. I have enjoyed learning how to figure out the process of blogging and WordPress.
The important part of this picture, is the hand that is holding up the bukcet handle. That hand belonds to Mr. Plastic Picker.
Drplasticpicker and Mr. Plastic Picker spent Friday and Saturday morning preparing for and then participating in our first Office Ocean Plastic Picking Outing. This journey of becoming drplasticpicker has brought unexpected joys, and one joy is that it has made me cherish Mr. Plastic Picker even more. In this journey of becoming Drplasticpicker, Mr. Plastic Picker and I have had all sorts of fun.
This is the first post (#1) in hopefully an ongoing series. Part of the purpose of this personal plastic picking blog, is like the personal finance blogs, is that it makes me accountable for my own stewardship of this earth as a mother and a pediatrician to 2000 children. Part of the way to reduce ocean plastic pollution is to advocate for less plastic in general and more use of post-consumer recycled plastic content. So here is the Post #1: Laundry Detergent companies!
This is the second post in this series. Since ocean plastic picking, I now spend a few minutes every day to dissect out what other easy actions our family can make to help the environment. Since I’m less on Facebook and not randomly scrolling on my iPhone, my mind has more space and time for useful thoughts. I like to track these things on the notes section of my iPhone. So this is my summary for October 2019 changes I made for our family and the Net Environmental Positives. Of note, I did not double dip. The reductions I did during the AAP trip to New Orleans https://drplasticpicker.com/drplasticpicker-goes-to-the-aap-national-conference-in-new-orleans-and-tries-to-use-less-plastic I did not take credit for again. This will be a monthly update. I tried to order from greatest environmental net positive to lowest, but it’s kind of subjective.
List of 15 Secondary Net Environmental Positives (October 2019)
