June 7, 2020

by drplasticpicker

We are living through a historic moment. Mass peaceful demonstrations for #blacklivesmatter dovetailing with the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our nephew, niece and brother-in-law in New York City participated in the demonstrations. They wore masks. I have already written my thoughts about the stain of racism on the health field as well https://drplasticpicker.com/blacklivesmatter-the-stain-of-slavery-colonialism-apartheid-extends-to-science/. The world has a lot of work to do. As America moves toward addressing the concerns of the #blacklivesmatter movement, #environmentaljustice should also be addressed because communities of color bear the greatest burden of climate change. Yet these same communities also bear the greatest burden of this pandemic. What a complex situation.

We have not participated in the protests. I support the movement fully but I cannot get sick and increase the spread of COVID-19. I will continue to sit and take my own path. There will be many moments in the next few years at work and in the environmental movement to advocate for black lives – and I will remember these lessons that the demonstrations are teaching. I will vote in November. I will speak up at meetings.

But there is still plastic to be picked up!

May 2020 I picked up 12 bags of trash and salvaged 14 items. As of today, I am at 203 bags of trash and 665 items salvaged https://drplasticpicker.com/plastic-picking-round-up/. The number of items that have been recycled, reused or donated is really amazing. We have now 66 readers on Facebook (which I think is the most important because our Facebook readers seem to actually read the blog content more than others). We passed 800 instagram friends a few days ago. Instagram is fun but again it’s more of an echoing champer.

12 Bags of Ocean Bound Plastic Collected

14 Items Salvaged

Object	Total Number	Fate
Aluminum Cans	9	Recycled
Plastic Bottles	2	Recycled
Glass Containers	1	Recycled
Toys	1	Kept as a Momento
Card Board Box	1	Recycled

And that is it. Just my monthly litter picking totals. I expect this month I will be able to get back up to 20-30 bags. I am not salvaging as many items since covid-19 makes it more dangerous to sort through the trash. I have a week off for vacation mid-month and since we are not going anywhere, I will try to go out litter picking maybe twice a day. I need to get over to the longer corridors on Mt Soledad. I know this is weird, but one of my dreams is to safely pick along the highways. There is so much litter there!!! I think my family would be upset though. I know of a collegue whose father died when he was struck by a car, when we pulled over on the side of the highway to help someone change their tire. She is a pediatric neurologist in Florida. It was such a tragic death. I know she also supports #blacklivesmatter as do almost all pediatricians.

New goals for June 2020 will be to get back up to 20-30 bags of plastic collected. We want to play Boggle a few times, as this will really put some variety into game night with the kids. I need to make my mother that Upcycled Bird House also. I also need to work on two big outside of work environmental projects that I will blog about later. One is for the Climate Action Campaigns, and the other is for AAP Chapter 3 Climate Change and Health Committee. Lots of work for all of us in the causes of racial justice, environmental justice and also stop the plastic pipeline into the oceans!

Thank you for following along! This entire project has been a great motivations to continue along this journey. Wow 665 salvaged items. And above is one of the few items we bought this month. Buy less.