Secondary Environmental Net Positives – April 2020 – Dr. Plastic Picker
 

Secondary Environmental Net Positives – April 2020

| Posted in Plastic Picking Totals

My bag from this morning. Picking up plastic litter motivates me to make other environmentally friendly changes in our lives!

April 30, 2020

by drplasticpicker

It’s the last day of April 2020. Blogging has become an important part of my day. Sometimes I will write a heartfelt piece that really stirs me emotionally that can be submitted to be published somewhere else. Sometimes I will write nonsense. In the beginning of the blogging I wrote a piece on “It is poop or is it plastic?” https://drplasticpicker.com/is-it-poop-or-is-it-plastic/ I don’t think anyone read that one. I wanted to recount the time a seagull pooped on my head in seventh grade. It was a powerful memory. All the blog pieces serve a purpose. I like rereading all of them and going back and editing minor grammatical errors. I am definitely of the school “Don’t let perfect get in the way of good.”

Today is an easier blogging day. Rather than pontificating about something or pouring out my heart, it’s my monthly task to report out my Secondary Environmental Net Positives. This is the 8th post in this series. Click here to read March 2020 https://drplasticpicker.com/secondary-environmental-net-positives-march-2020/. Since blogging is really a form of journaling for me (I used to journal for years as a young child and up until college), it is meaningful for me to look back at all those previous blog posts. In total I’ve made 105 decisions that are beneficial for the environment that are secondary environmental net positives – that occur because I have taken on the task of collecting ocean plastic. Again, this series is the least popular but for me the most powerful. The cascade effect of habits (whether they be positive or negative) is powerful. This blog series serves to help hard-wire these changes because I give myself “virtual blog credit” and then I move on to other changes. Wow over a hundred changes to date.

Overall the environment has benefited from COVID-19 because I have not been driving as much and am home. But the number of actual changes we made is not as numerous. Knowing I had to write this blogpost at the end of the month did give me much needed motivation. So here it is, only 10 rather than the usual 15. But please remember, Dr. Plastic Picker is big on forgiveness including for myself.

List of 10 Secondary Net Environmental Positives (April 2020) – This month I’m going to list them numerically.

  1. Thirty-six (36) pieces of paper averted due to changing several rental property bills to automatic. Click here to read about my thoughts on physicians and real estate investing https://drplasticpicker.com/dr-plastic-picker-shares-real-estate-investing-advice-for-mds/.
  2. Twenty-four (24) Organic eggs purchased in a cardboard carton. Grocery shopping is definitely more challenging during COVID-19. Mr. Plastic Picker and I ventured into the large Korean grocer. We had a heated exchange because he needed to buy eggs for his parents and they always buy a lot. I won. If we don’t buy the organic ones and we are the 1% and care about the environment, who will? Plus styrofoam still infuriates me.
  3. Twelve (12) stamps saved and the corresponding carbon that is associated with mailing a letter averted. This is from the same bills I finally changed to automatic listed under item 1.
  4. Six (6) insurance statements changed also to automatic and paperless. It is a lot more than 6 pieces of paper, but I listed it as 6 different insurance statements. I reviewed our finances and insurance with our agent recently. We have trusted him for 11 years now. Anyway, with the financial meltodown – it was a good time to review everything with him. We upped our coverage for certain things.
  5. Six (6) language lessons I did for our daughter. This has nothing to do with the environment, but listing it is prompting me to do this. Check our Facebook page to check out this completely unrelated project! https://www.facebook.com/Two-Sisters-Teach-Our-Half-Vietnamese-Children-Vietnamese-110377663929036/
  6. Five (5) showers averted. Since the average shower is 17 gallons of water, that is 85 gallons of water saved! We have rainbarrels and harvest rain water, and during the recent downpour we collected 395 gallons of rain water https://drplasticpicker.com/rain-barrels-are-awesome-rain-water-harvesting-sounds-very-romantic/. But that kind of rainshower is so rare in southern california. Therefore averting 5 showers a month over 4-5 months is equivalent to a powerful rainstorm. Multiplied that by millions of people it shows how powerful water conservation is.
  7. Four (4) cups of jasmine tea instead of coffee. I have had jasmine tea for years now, and need to use it up. Drinking this tea reduces the amount of coffee we buy. We haven’t switched over to Rainforest friendly coffee yet, so I’m trying to really just drink more tea that I already have.
  8. Two (2) cartons of non-dairy milk. One was rice milk and the other was oat milk. This has been a fun project because our kids are starting to really like non-dairy milk! My daughter just told me, she is not sure if her brother likes the non-dairy milk. She really likes the oatmilk as it tastes like icecream.
  9. Two (2) trash liners made from scraps of plastic! My trash liners are famous and I think got one article accepted at KevinMD. The article was shared 175 times! LOL. Not sure if it was the Snorlax or the trashliner that piqued everyone’s interest. https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2020/03/covid-19-social-distancing-is-like-bedrest.html
  10. One (1) home computer search engine changed to Ecosa. This was on 1 of my 2 work laptops. Don’t ask me why we have 2. But 1 has Ecosia. Ecosia is a non-for-profit but for-the-environment search engine that I endorse. I wrote an entire blog about it! https://drplasticpicker.com/ecosians-drplasticpicker-has-always-liked-alien-like-names-change-your-search-engine-to-ecosia-they-plant-trees-you-become-an-ecosian/ Since switching to Ecosia for this computer I’ve done 643 searches which is 14 trees!

One of the other changes we made is my Upcycled Presidential Bird House! I wrote about it in another blogpost so did not list it here. I don’t like to take double credit for things, but check it out as I think it was a well written piece https://drplasticpicker.com/an-upcycled-presidential-bird-house/ Everyday our family enjoys the increasing number of birds who visit our yard. Well thank you for visiting my blog! I hope I provided you with some free, G-rated, environmentally friendly entertainment during this COVID-19 quarantine/pandemic. It’s a stressful time and it’s nice to have something else to think about.

The beach is closed but I think it’s for the best. There were too many people crowded there on Monday.
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