December 7, 2019
An original poem by Charlotte, age 8.
Pollutes the Earth
Littered all over the beach.
Always there.
Strong but dangerous.
Takes up space.
Icky to the core.
Creates trash.
Another poem for the same poetess entitled “HELP” https://drplasticpicker.com/help/
December 6, 2019
by drplasticpicker
I had great fun being interviewed by our local paper the PB Monthly. Savannah Duffy, the journalist, phone interviewed me twice and we exchanged several emails. I got to tell our nursing staff and my clinic friends in great fun, “I can’t go to lunch because I have an interivew this afternoon.” She even asked to record the interivew and I was so intrigued that she asked my permission! But in this whole plastic picking and blogging adventure, this PB Monthly interview was a high point and will give me energy to keep on going!
December 4, 2019
by drplasticpicker
Mr. Plastic Picker had a headache last night. He was sitting in front of his middle management home office with spreadsheets open on multiple screens, pencil in hand with physical spreadsheets of names and numbers in front of him, and making tallies. “I have a headache,” he told me. “I’ve been getting about two a week.” He had thought perhaps it was his new eyeglass prescription and had gone to the optometrist a few times to double check, and his eyes seem better. But he is still getting headaches.
December 4, 2019
by drplasticpicker
I went to a large middle management meeting, and climate change was front and center. As a large health care organization in Southern California, we are getting ready. There have been 17 active wildfires in California in October 2019, 94,000 acres burned, and 129 million dead tress. We discussed extreme heat events, and that the last 8 out of 10 hottest years have been this last decade. Heat related illness cause more deaths annually than all other extreme weather events. We looked at color coded maps that estimate the increasing reach of Dengue fever. And that climate change drives increased domestic violence, child abuse/neglect, mental illness exacerbations and suicide attemtps and completions.
December 3, 2019
An original poem by drplasticpicker after a middle management meeting. Just in good fun to help me digest the topics presented today.
Today I went to a large management meeting
With doctors and nurses and managers I was seating
A VUCA world they were saying
To God we should be praying
Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity – they can be defeating
But as I sat there fading in and out of sleep
My attention the imported business paradigms did not keep
I’d rather be outside cleaning
Protecting Snowy Egrets they are preening
Vision, Understanding, Clarity, Adaptability – what the bleep?!
VUCA this, VUCA that, VUCA world, VUCA prime
VUCA past, VUCA present, VUCA future, VUCA crime
Note: This is strictly for entertainment purposes. It was a decent meeting. They ordered roast beef sandwhiches which I avoided, and I refused a plastic water bottle. VUCA that plastic!
December 2, 2019
by drplasticpicker
I’m old enough to have been there when Cyber Monday became a term. I’m old enough to have known “Facebook” was the actual Freshmen picture registry at Harvard that was given out to the incoming class so that they would know some basic information about their classmates, before it was co-opted by Mark Zuckerberg. And I’m old enough now to remember when we never had Cyber Mondays and the world was fine without it. Drplasticpicker is technically the tail-end of Generation X, the generation of latch-key kids when our parents were thought to be somewhat neglectful and we came home afterschool by ourselves. We let ourselves into the houses with our latch-keys and made ourselves TV dinners, and sat in front of the TV watching sitcoms and doing our homework alone. At some points our working parents came home to parent us. And we then threw out those plastic microwave meal trays away.
December 2, 2019
An original poem by Charlotte, age 9
An original drawing by Daniela, age 11
The Ocean is dirty, dirty, dirty,
Has too much trash.
Maybe because of us?
Maybe because of boats?
Maybe because of sewage?
The Ocean is dirty, dirty, dirty.
We work hard to clean it up . .
So are we doing enough?
Should we do more?
Is it too late?
The Ocean is dirty, dirty, dirty.
Here is another poem by the same child poetess titled simply “PLASTIC” and a crayon drawing by Bella aged 7 “Tottie” https://drplasticpicker.com/plastic/
December 2, 2019
by drplasticpicker
This is the third post in this series. Since ocean plastic picking, I now spend a few minutes every day figuring out what other easy actions our family can take to help the environment. I like to track of these actions on the notes section as free text on my iPhone. So this is my summary for November 2019 in what I call our Secondary Environmental Net Positives.
December 1, 2019
by drplasticpicker
The Saturday after Thanksgiving, our family spent a quiet day at home. I had gone out Ocean Plastic Picking early in the morning, and quickly picked up 2 bags of ocean bound plastic and hauled home at least 10 items. Interestingly enough it was a monetarily high yield salvagable day as I found one almost new Corkcicle water bottle which retails $32.95 and a pair of Men’s Arizona Slide Sandals by Birkenstock which retails $44.99. I never had heard of Corkcicle before until my recent interview with Dr. Craig Canapari who uses this brand of water bottle https://drplasticpicker.com/dr-craig-canapari-pediatrician-and-environmentalist-2/. Those items have been carefully washed and I will regift them soon and deploy them back into the circular economy.
November 30, 2019
by drplasticpicker
This is a summary of my November 2019 plastic picking! Technically I still have this morning, but it’s 6am and still dark and I haven’t gone out yet. I want to publish 1 post a day so I’ll count this morning’s plastic counts in December’s totals. So this is total bags of trash and other things found near the shoreline that are now donated, reused or gifted. I have also updated my Plastic Picking Totals https://drplasticpicker.com/plastic-picking-round-up/. This is my third month of plastic picking, and number of bags came up 31 from 19.5 (58% net increase) last month as did total number of items 111 from 88 (26% net increase).