Part 3: Office Beach Clean Up Final Results!!! – Dr. Plastic Picker
 

Part 3: Office Beach Clean Up Final Results!!!

| Posted in Office Beach Cleanings

November 17, 2019

by drplasticpicker

View of our group from the Life Guard Tower. Photo credit my Nursing Manager friend now RNPlasticpicker.

This update post is 2 weeks late. Usually I’m able to churn out posts pretty quick (Mr. Plastic Picker thinks too quick). I think it is because I have 40+ years of writing pent up that needs to get out. This blog post took longer because it involved many people who mean a lot to me and I wanted to do this right. If you are reading this and you are part of our community, thank you for spending your precious weekend morning with drplasticpicker and Mr. Plastic Picker for our first Office Beach Clean Up. As I was planning the beach clean up https://drplasticpicker.com/how-to-plan-an-office-beach-clean-up-together/, I was not sure what would happen and how many would come. I figured worse case scenario, it would be just Mr. Plastic Picker and myself and we would at least collect two bags of ocean plastic.

But sure enough, at the ungodly hour to some of 730am (but for me the best time to be on the beach) our group came together! I estimated we collected at least 20 lbs of ocean bound plastic and 5 lbs of recycleables. Our group worked with I Love a Clean San Diego who provided guidance and supplies https://drplasticpicker.com/part-2-organizing-the-office-beach-cleanup-is-the-ultimate-bargain-in-clean-fun/. Their organization also works with the Ocean Conservency to identify what kind of plastic pollution is found on the beaches. And this morning I entered the final totals of what types of trash into their website, which the Ocean Conservency uses for research and advocacy.

Our group and the 20lbs of ocean bound plastic we collected! Photo credit by drplasticpicker.

Here we are, an anonymous group of co-workers and our children who cleaned the beach last week as part of I Love A Clean San Diego.

In the two weeks since the clean up, I did follow up with the three families that came. There were six children who came with their parents, who are also drplasticpicker’s coworkers. Four of those children are my actual pediatric patients. All comments are shared with their permission.

Two teenagers came with their mother, and they got credit for community service hours as well. One told me, “It was really fun and there were a lot of people. I don’t really like it the way other people just litter everywhere.” His sister actually ran into her beach volleyball team that morning, and they wanted her to join in. But she said she had committed to the beach clean up. She told me, “Oh my beach cleanup was fun because I had to clean the whole beach.” I asked her, “Did you find anything interesting? ” She answered, “No.”

Two school aged kids came with their father, and it was his birthday. They are starting a new tradition that on each family member’s birthday, they are going to do something that helps others or the earth. The father told me the kids were initially hard to get up and grumpy, but being on the beach in the cool morning air was great. He related to me the kids had a big sense of accomplishment afterwards that they cleaned the beach themselves.

The third family with children is my nursing manager counter-part. I call her my partner-in-crime. We go to meetings together and manage our portion of the department together. Both of us helped prevent a measles outbreak in our community by tirelessly working 2 days straight, but that’s another story and probably can’t be told on this blog. If you see me, you can ask me about it. So essentially I trust this friend with my life. She is a Good Jedi. She told me that this was the first time her children and she had ever done a beach clean up, and that it was fun. They actually saw one of their family friends who is a local lifeguard, and the son was happily running down the beach as his dad’s friend was chasing him. He is an active 8 year old boy, and I think he had the most fun. He was everywhere on the beach, darting around the piers and sand and picking up trash. He told me, “My dad doesn’t believe in global warming. ” His dad is a wonderful person and a protector of our country. I said, “Little friend, you don’t have to believe in global warming to help clean up the beach. Look there is plastic right there. Plastic is a non-partisan issue.” He looked at me happily and darted away to join another group of our friends and find more plastic treasures.

Mr. Plastic Picker is always willing to help out financially and drive, but he does not like to be on the beach. He manned our picnic tables, and set out the simple breakfast for everyone and did his stretches. He has had back surgery, so I don’t expect him to do a lot.

We all had a wonderful breakfast afterwards, and got to be special guest and clean up in the lifeguard office bathrooms since my nursing manager friend knew the lifeguard. In total our group logged in 30 volunteer hours cleaning the beach, 20 lbs of trash, 5 lbs of recycleables and had breakfast for $1.71 a person https://drplasticpicker.com/part-2-organizing-the-office-beach-cleanup-is-the-ultimate-bargain-in-clean-fun/. And we all spent time together in nature, which is priceless.

So I leave you with the picture below. The last of our group before we headed off to our separate weekend plans. We cleaned, we ate, we had fun. The rest of our office friends who missed it are already asking when the next one is! I heard that if we go 2 jetties further north, that there is more plastic by the IB Surf School. Stay tuned for the next clean up in February 2020.

An office that beach cleans together, succeeds together! Signing out for now and going to clean by myself , drplasticpicker!

The last of our group before we went about our separate weekend plans. I forgot why we decided to point toward the pier? On the seawall, is our super active 8-year-old who was full of energy!!! Photo credit by drplasticpicker

Are you inspired? Click here to read about an upcoming opportunity to become Insta-FAMOUS by helping the earth. https://drplasticpicker.com/insta-famous-let-me-know-if-you-want-to-come-out-to-ib-pier-and-ocean-plastic-pick-sunday-feb-2/


6 thoughts on “Part 3: Office Beach Clean Up Final Results!!!”

  1. Christine M.-P. says:

    I can’t comment on the upcoming clean up event post, so since this post references the next event I’ll comment here. You can count my family in for the Feb. clean up event. It’s on the family calendar. I’m planning to bring all my kiddos (3), maybe hubby (Superbowl…), and maybe Grandma Nurse Patty (Zion) if we can convince her to get sandy. If plans/#s change closer to the date I’ll try to let you know. Glad to hear the blog and other related media is gaining followers and attention. Besides using squeazies and cloth diapers, places we buy from that are more eco-conscious include Grove Collaborative (for clean supplies and some personal care products), Imperfect Foods/Produce, and ThredUp. Since this mom is a full time professional, places that ship and deliver to my house are huge time savers. I have so many more comments, but will save them for another day. Keep up the great work both with beach picking and keeping kids like mine heathy.

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