November 2, 2019
by drplasticpicker
It has been a busy few days with being out of town and catching up with normal work and family responsibilities, but I took a vacation day since the kids were off due to one of those random Professional Developmental Days. I was able to leave for my quick jog to the shore, and spent 45 minutes wandering along the coastline since there was no drop-off this morning. Midway along my walk with only 1/3 bag full, I spied something I had never seen before!
November 1, 2019
by drplasticpicker
This is a summary of my October 2019 plastic picking! Total bags of trash and other things found near the shoreline that are now donated, reused or gifted. I have also updated my Plastic Picking Totals https://drplasticpicker.com/plastic-picking-round-up for semi regular updates. This is my second month of plastic picking, and number of bags dropped off as did total number of items. As you can see drplasticpicker is honest. When my grocery bag is half filled, I only give myself half bag credit. It was a busy month with the 2 out of town trips and learning how to blog. But I’m dedicated to the main focus which is really just getting to the beach and cleaning up. Hopefully next month, you’ll see my totals go up!
19.5 Bags of Ocean Bound Plastic Collected
88 Items Salvaged
October 31, 2019
by drplasticpicker
I wanted to explain the reasoning for this series of post on product reviews. Sometimes in this crazy world of rising emissions and big money politics, even a pediatrician feels powerless. Well now as drplasticpicker I’m taking my power back! I can choose to spend my leisure time helping the environment by picking up plastic. And also I can choose how I spend money. We all spend money. I choose to spend less, but I figure every dollar I deploy into the economy I can either lessen my environmental impact or make a positive environmental impact. Case in point was Halloween. I chose to deploy $37 to our local Goodwill buying reused rather than new low quality plastic costumes at the local Halloween Spirit Store. I imagine myself as an invisible drplasticpicker carbon sink – sucking up the carbon in the air and freeing the earth and her children!
October 30, 2019
by drplasticpicker
It’s a scary time of year tomorrow! It’s scary for children’s teeth from the sugar, for their circadian rhythms due to staying up late trick-o-treating, and for the earth! Most Halloween candy comes wrapped in plastic, and many new Halloween costumes are made of plastic. This is my attempt to reduce the plastic consumption this Halloween. I have 5 things that are under my semi-control this Halloween. Those 5 things are: what kind of treats we are handing out, what my contribution to the office party will be, my costume, my middle-schooler’s costume, and my high school son’s costume. This is so far how we have done.
October 29, 2019
by drplasticpicker
Hello dear friends! Drplasticpicker and Dr. Dear Friend spent our last evening in New Orleans walking along the banks of the great Mississippi River. As you know, the American Academy of Pediatrics National Conference is in New Orleans this year. We had finished attending at least 6 hours of lectures, so we meandered from the New Orleans Convention Center to Jackson Square and the famous Cafe Du Monde. We were looking for beignets and chicory coffee!
October 27, 2019
by drplasticpicker
I am lucky to be part of a fun office with like-minded pediatricians, nurses and back-office support staff. We work together. Share meals together. Celebrate birthdays and each others’ big milestones. Drplasticpicker’s office friends wanted to do an ocean beach cleanup in order to bond and help the earth together! I am excited about posting the results of our group clean-up which will be next weekend.
In this blog post, I will describe the 10 steps it took to organize the office beach clean up.
October 27, 2019
by drplasticpicker
I am having a wonderful time at the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) National Conference and Exhibition 2019 which is in New Orleans. This is proof that drplasticpicker is a real-life board certified pediatrician and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics. But as drplasticpicker, how can I participate in these conferences and still try to use less plastic? I am traveling with my 3 clinic friends, and they are on board to try to reduce our plastic use while learning and having a good time eating in New Orleans.
October 26, 2019
by drplasticpicker
One of the benefits of my new hobby, is that single use plastic bags are slowly disappearing around me! I am not a purist by any measure. I spend about anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour a day either thinking about the environment or plastic picking. It is possible to do beach clean-ups zero-waste with gardening gloves and large plastic buckets. Maybe at some point I will get there. But right now I need to make it easy and part of my day. I also need to make sure I don’t get sick from picking up these items.
October 23, 2019
by drplasticpicker
Its hard to know how parts of our plastic-filled lives ends up on the beach. The current commonly quoted percentage is 30% of plastics ends up in the ocean. But the Ocean Clean Up group has done research now demonstrating that much of that ocean plastic actually is repeatedly washed onto our shores, and at some point escapes and joins the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
This Large Toy Plastic Kitchen holds a lot of meaning to our family. The picture above is where it is now, with it’s second family and two beautiful siblings playing together. If this toy is cared for properly it could be the host of many more times of great fun and laughter for many generations.
October 21. 2019
by drplasticpicker
Since starting on this journey of wandering along the ocean’s edge and looking for plastic, I have more time to think since time has literally slowed down. Because my attempts to stop climate change are tangible now, diverting ocean plastic one piece at a time – I have felt more empowered and had more time to dissect out what other easy changes our family can make. I think about it just a few minutes a day. The time I had previously spent scrolling through my iPhone confused about why the Kardashians are even a thing, I now just think – what other easy thing I can do? As always, I like to track things on my iPhone in the notes section. So this is my summary for September 2019 changes I made for our family and the Net Environmental Positives. This will be a monthly update. I tried to order from greatest environmental net positive to lowest, but it’s kind of subjective.