Product Reviews – Dr. Plastic Picker
 

Category: Product Reviews

September 10, 2020

by drplasticpicker

I learned about the film “Gather” through Instagram friends https://gather.film/. It just was released a week ago and there is a review on the New York Times. But I heard about it on Instagram. There was a movie advertised heavily where Woody Harrelson and a super model married to Tom Brad (I forget her name, Giselle?) talk about regenerative agriculture. The movie trailer seemed very similar to 2040? I passed that one up. I think our world (and definitely for me) is past the point when Hollywood has any sort of moral authority. But then I heard the music from Raye Zaragosa and it reached me. Raye Zaragosa, folk singer with a hauntingly beautiful voice https://www.rayezaragoza.com/. She is Native American and Japanese, and I discovered her through her music as part of the new release on the film “Gather” which I watched last night. It is about fixing Native American food systems and centuries of systemic violence against the Native Americans. Took me to my mid-40s to find a musical artist that speaks to me.

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The affordable brand our pharmacy carries that I should have been recommending from the beginning. Live and learn.

January 26, 2020

by drplasticpicker

About 5 years ago, I had attended the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) meeting when it was in our region. If you have ever been to a professional medical conference, you know that the Exhibit Halls are a frenzy of free giveaways and well dressed and good-looking pharmaceutical salespeople waving you over to their booths with enticements of free samples and free bags. They are always smiling and talking to us with perfectly white and straight teeth. I often worry during those sales pitches and think, “Gosh did I floss today? I should whiten my teeth more.”

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A young pediatrician’s child, having a plastic-free breakfast with her Squeasy Gear. Photo credit by her mother.

December 19, 2019

by drplasticpicker

So much of life and career success is about timing and support. Many of the reasons why I am in middle-management is that I had my children with Mr. Plastic Picker relatively young while in residency and fellowship. I’m in my 40s, and while many of my same-age physician cohort still have young children – mine are older. I have more time and energy to focus on work (and plastic picking!) It is the nearing the week of Christmas. I remember as a young physician being stressed this time of year trying to arrange for childcare or school camps, coordinating work-schedules with an even busier physician spouse, trying to cover a half-staffed clinic, trying not to get sick and still being there for my own children. Mr. Plastic Picker and I just hit 10 years with our organization. This milestone reminds me how important it is for us to support our younger colleagues.

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Four rolls artfully positioned in front of my mother’s bamboo frosted class bathroom shower door. Their bathrooms are super clean. Photo credit by drplasticpicker.com.

December 9, 2019

by drplasticpicker

When I started blogging at drplasticpicker.com, it was the same time that the “Who Gives A Crap?” http://whogivesacrap.org/toilet paper Facebook ads were popping up. It was a very cute slightly chubby brown haired woman shashaying with a big carboard box with the catchy yet slightly profane name, “Who Gives a Cr@p?” (I put the @ in for a, it doesn’t seem right to write even a slightly bad word in a pediatric blog). I was never shy, so after only writing 10 blog posts and maybe a few hundred page views – I emailed their company asking for free toilet paper samples. I was already thinking about switching to a more sustainble toilet paper alternative anyway.

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November 19, 2019

by drplasticpicker

Somethings are too big for me to pick up. Broken surfboards, shopping carts, broken tents that have their polyester fabric doors agape. I am sure there is a story to each one of those items. These I leave because I simply can’t carry them with only the photos I have snapped. I concentrate on the smaller pieces that fit in my grocery bags.

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November 12, 2019

by drplasticpicker

They came! I was so excited to open up my box and found these beautiful Squeasy Gears!!! http://squeasygear.com/ Photo credit by drplasticpicker.

As you know, I had an amazingly high-yield week in New Orleans at the last American Academy of Pediatrics Meeting https://drplasticpicker.com/drplasticpicker-goes-to-the-aap-national-conference-in-new-orleans-and-tries-to-use-less-plastic/. One of the talks I attended was by Dr. Diane Barsky from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). I trained in the Northeast, and CHOP is impressive. They are like the Tesla of pediatric training programs. One of the topics she addressed was near and dear to any pediatrician’s heart, fiber.

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November 3, 2019

by drplasticpicker.com

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!

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October 31, 2019

by drplasticpicker

Plastic brains given out my a company at the AAP exhibition.

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!

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