January 2020 – Plastic Picking Round Up!
February 2, 2020
by drplasticpicker
Today is a day of happiness and saddness. It is a happy day because the second drplasticpicker Office Beach Clean Up was a big success. I honestly did not know how many would show up, and we had 15 volunteers. It was a lovely morning for many interconnected reasons. It is a sad day also because two butterfly conservationists in Mexico were murdered likely by local drug cartels or illegal loggers. These two conservationists were integral to the efforts to preserve the Western Monarch Butterfly. I posted on my personal facebook page and likely no one will notice, but there are forces of good and evil in the world. I have never been an alarmist, but I see it now. Being on the beach most days has opened my eyes to the forces of evil that are trying to steal our children’s future. What can one person do? What can one pediatrician that has created this drplasticpicker avatar realistically do? I ask myself that every morning as I drive to work looking at a still beautiful blue sky, and when I go to bed thinking about the insects dying en masse around us. I think about the light pollution humans have caused that is keeping us humans up, and also partially disrupting the invertebrate ecosystem.
What can I do? I can keep on blogging, keep on plastic picking, keep on community organizing, and hope that I am part of billions that are mobilizing and waking up. And this post series is a source of happiness. Sometimes when I feel helpless, that we are confronting an insurmountable task, I look at my totals and I am reminded about how much one very normal very ordinary person can do.
On reviewing last month’s December 2019 Plastic Picking Round Up blog post https://drplasticpicker.com/december-2019-plastic-picking-round-up/, I had wanted to pick up 20-30 bags a month. I think that is a reasonable number and about 20 blog posts. Last month I wrote 29 blog post. In general, January had the fewest bags and the fewest blog posts but still respectable. Now that I have an archive of >100 blog posts, I think that is a good goal for every month. This month was also busy because I became more involved in local and professional environmental projects. I have also been accepted to attend the Climate Reality Project training this season, which is part of former Vice President Al Gore’s group. I am hopeful regarding this opportunity. So below are the totals for January 2020.
23 Bags of Ocean Bound Plastic Collected (I only count the ones I pick, the group totals I will write about in a separate blogpost).
48 Items Salvaged
Object | Total Number | Fate |
Aluminum Cans | 23 | Recycled |
Plastic Bottles | 7 | Recycled |
Sand Toys | 0 | Gifted |
Flip Flops | 6 | Donated |
Clothing Items | 1 | Donated |
Toys | 4 | Donated |
Glass Containers | 0 | Recycled |
Tennis Balls | 2 | Donated |
Office Supply Items | 1 | Donated |
It was a good month overall, so this makes me more hopeful regarding the future.
Here are the plastic picking totals from last month, December 2019 https://drplasticpicker.com/december-2019-plastic-picking-round-up/
And here are the totals for the following month, Feburary 2020. Click here to see if I was able to keep it up! http://February 2020 https://drplasticpicker.com/february-2020-plastic-picking-round-up/
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