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.

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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.

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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. 

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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.

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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.

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October 20, 2019

by drplasticpicker

Drplasticpicker in my real life is in middle management. I do half time clinical work, and the other half at endless meetings. Trust me, I’ve heard about mindfulness and physician wellness. I sit there sometimes, and I just nod mindlessly about our discussions about mindfulness.

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October 19, 2019

by drplasticpicker

I had a fitful night of sleep, racing thoughts about life and work and broken relationships. Since beginning this journey on ocean plastic picking, my sleep has been much better but life happens and sleep is a time to process things. Weekend mornings I have more time to wander along the beach, and mother nature seemed to be mirroring life. The sun was rising. The waves were fierce and powerful. Foaming waves crescendoing and crashing into its neighbor. The ocean expanding and contracting along the shore.

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October 16, 2019

by drplasticpicker

I had adventures this morning! Drplasticpicker was up before sunrise and I met a wondrous sight. I try to clean at the ocean’s edge and along the sand cliffs, and sometimes I’ll pick ocean plastic on the main beach. I’ve seen sand being brought it to rebuild the beach, but wondered how the beach itself was cleaned? Now, I have seen it with my own eyes! It is cleaned by the Surf Rake, a tractor-towed beach cleaner.

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