April 4, 2020

by drplasticpicker

It is good to have a rhythm to the month, and blogging has given me this structure in life. There is a world-wide pandemic going on, but let’s leave that somewhere else for a bit. I did pick up ocean bound plastic at the beginning of the month so at least I have something to report out for March. Now that I am reviewing my notes, I was really doing a lot of litter picking at the beginning of March – and I’m glad I did because for various reasons that everyone knows, there was not much litter picking or beach cleaning from mid month. I expect April to be really nothing since the beaches are closed. I think I could do it safely, but I don’t want to set a bad example and someone copies me and doesn’t wear the right protection and then gets sick. Dr. Dear Friend https://drplasticpicker.com/drplasticpicker-goes-to-the-aap-national-conference-in-new-orleans-and-tries-to-use-less-plastic/ is cleaning her office, which is a great idea for April. I’m thankful for this blog series, because I’m accountable to report out to our readers even if the total is 0. This is the entire purpose of this blog! I have to be accountable to you and the environment.

Blog traffic has really shot up. Everyone is online right now. I feel I’m doing a public service by providing free and wholesome entertainment. One day I had 500 readers. This will be my 160th blogpost. Facebook has about consistently 60 subscribers. Dr. Plastic Picker has leveled off at about 700 Instagram followers. I’ve been trying to cull out the bots and anti-environmental spies that are lurking around instagram. It’s a dangerous world out on the internet at times. I also try to remove the commercial accounts that are selling things to my patients. Between the blog, Facebook and Instagram I am enough to keep me occupied and amused. I feel like I can stay my authenic Dr. Plastic Picker self.

Between the paragraph above and this paragraph, Mr. Plastic Picker and I went for a good 3 mile brisk walk to the beach and back. The beach is closed, but it was so wonderful to see the waves and feel the brisk breeze. I saw some of my shorebird friends. Likely the Whimbrels https://drplasticpicker.com/way-of-the-whimbrel/, Marbled Godwits and Snowy Plovers are having a big party. Can you imagine the little crabs? I think they are multiplying like crazy now since no big humans are stepping on them. At some point we humans will return, and Dr. Plastic Picker will return and clean up after my fellow homo sapiens. So here were my totals for March 2020. Click here to see my grand totals since I started! https://drplasticpicker.com/plastic-picking-round-up/

18 Bags of Ocean Bound Plastic Collected

46 Items Salvaged

Object	Total Number	Fate
Aluminum Cans	27	Recycled
Plastic Bottles	6	Recycled
Sand Toys	3	Gifted
Office Supplies	5	Reused
Tennis Balls	3	Ginny – our dog
Clothing	1	Donated

Click here to see how many bags I picked up April 2020. https://drplasticpicker.com/april-2020-plastic-picking-round-up/