Secondary Environmental Net Positives – October, November, December 2020
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January 19, 2021
by drplasticpicker
I watched my KevinMD podcast at least 15 times, maybe more. Mr. Plastic Picker asked me if I was watching it AGAIN, and I got a bit irritated at him. The reason I was watching it multiple times because it was almost like my Plastic Picking Senior Thesis. My actual senior thesis in college likely only three people ever read. It was a year of futility because I picked a topic that would be doable within the year at Harvard, and not something I was passionate about. I was so focused on the mechanics of getting into medical school and not a passion. I need to remember this for my now 5 AAP-CA3 Climate Change and Health interns. I need to find them work that they are PASSIONATE about. This is the only way to true growth and progress. I was not passionate about cleft palate and eugenics theory. I learned the mechanics of academic historical writing. I AM PASSIONATE about plastic picking and ocean beach cleaning, and physician wellness and management and environmentalism. I think this is demonstrated in the KevinMD Podcast interview. Plus, I kept on listening to the podcast because honestly I did not prepare for it. I thought I was very tangential as I was giving the interview. But the interview is actually the culmination of what picking up almost 400 bags of ocean plastic pollution and salvaging over 1500 items from the ocean/landfill and reploying it into the circulation of human consumption does to a person. This litter picking journey and ocean plastic pollution reduction journey for me has been about passion. I think that passion is evident in the podcast interview.
As I was listening to the podcast interview, I could hear echoes of sentences I had written in various blogs. The speaking part is effective because most of those turn of phrases and sentences I had written first. I have been proud of the personal work of self-healing and earth-healing I have done on the beach and on this blog over the last year and a half. It hasn’t been easy, but it’s been real and tangible. Anyway, I articulated this self reflection to my sometimes cynical Mr. Plastic Picker, junior college boy of my dreams now middle-aged physician middle manager. The English major that I married understood. The idealistic boy I married is still there, buried somewhere within the cynicism of my middle-age husband. This journey has been about us growing together as well and discovering new aspects of each other. Last Saturday mid-morning, I was standing in the kitchen and I looked up. I realized that my parents-in-law were juicing a large bowl full of lemons with their favorite hand-metal squeezer lemon thing. I was making some home-made dough or something. And Mr. Plastic Picker was at the coffee station (we have a big kitchen) grinding his own coffee in his recently purchased German-designed hand coffee mill. We were all living our more sustainable lives. I looked up and started laughing at the four of us, and pointed out what we were all doing to try ot reduce plastic and live life earth-friendly. He smiled at least and my mother-in-law laughed. Noticing these connections and how we are more connected to eachother has been truly heart-warming.
I used that word heart-warming several times in the KevinMD podcast interview, and I realized that it’s an apt word to describe this entire journey. Heart-warming – all of it.
But rather than going onto philosophical tangests and pontificating, I thought I’d write a long-postponed and easy post of our family’s Secondary Environmental Net Positives for October, November and December 2020. I hadn’t felt the need to detail all the continued positives because they were flowing and changes are becoming hard-wired in our family. But I needed an easy post to write, and also the exposure from the KevinMD podcast that has been shared almost 100 times has made me shy. I need to remind myself that this blog has been about practicalities. I started this blog because I wanted to do something about the environment and document concrete actions. Litterpicking continues to inspire in me a cascading effect of changing our lives to live with the earth in mind.
List of 10 Secondary Environmental Net Positives for October, November and December 2020
- 15 Showers Averted. This are just the showers I purposefully postponed to save water. In general, we are showering every other day or every day and a half these days.
- Composting more. This is hard to quantify, but the Aerobin 400 is doing it’s composting magic.
- One Recycled Thing From the Halloween Event. I’m just typing the notes I made from my iPhone? I think I saved the plastic table liners and plastic work things from the Pediatric Vaccine Drive-Through Event. We will reuse next year.
- Three Tax Bills On-Line: Saved me some stamp money too!
- Three Shirts Cut Into Rags: Two shirts found on the beach that were laundered and 100% cotton, and cut into usable rags for the kitchen. Also cut up a pair of lounging pants where the waist band was too worn. More rags and the inside elastic gave to my mother-in-law for her sewing stash.
- Three Succulent Plants Given Away: I’m having great fun propogating succulents. I gave away three of my succulent babies. I try to reuse pots given to me by others and not by new things. I do have to admit I did buy $100 worth of gardening supplies at Home Depot with fancy new succulents and now decorative clay pots. But that’s it. I will continue to propogate those succulents.
- HiBar Bar Shampoo: My daughter and husband have also switched over to HiBar Bar Shampoo. They are alternating between their remaining liquid shampoo. I tried to get a coupon for the Physicians for Sustainable Future Facebook Group but they politely declined. I still love their products though!
- Refillable Deodorant. Mr. Plastic Picker switched to the HumanKind Refillable Deordorant and so far so good.
- Vegetable Appetizer Plate at Dinner: Since we are eating more plant-based which includes a more Mediterranean Diet, we are trying to eat more olives. I have successfully added a vegetable appetizer plate at dinner. I’ll cut some vegetables and put a bit of cheese and some olives. Some days are prettier than others, but it gives us a bigger variety of vegetables and flavors for dinner and has been fun thus far.
- Salvaged Large Piece of Plastic Artificial Turf: A family member was doing a big construction project and had a large piece of artifical turf he was going to throw away into the landfill. It’s perfectly new artificial turf. My mother called me about it, and my father-in-law and I drove down there to pick it up. It’s perfect! I’m going to put it up on my roofdeck!
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And that is it! Those are the 10 Secondary Environmental Net Positives that I remembered to list on my iPhone for September-December. Thanks for following along. We are a shared community, and I also appreciate hearing about other people’s changes and suggestions on Instagram and in real life as well!