Hi, Just watched a pretty terrifying and informative documentary on Netflix about plastics in our ocean and by default in our food systems. That means you! If you eat, you will be affected. The main thing I've come out of this with is just trying to convince smart human beings to be a tad bit smarter and STOP BUYING USELESS PLASTIC PRODUCTS THAT YOU USE FOR LESS THAN 12 MINUTES OF YOUR BIG BEAUTIFUL GIANT LIFE. STOP IT! Also, I want to make sure my graphic design business keeps away from plastics. I only use plastic that has been reused from cereal bags or other packaging that I must buy. I tape it up and try to make it look like it wasn't reused....but it is. It also saves me $$ which I appreciate. I know it will get thrown away eventually, but at least this thing was used more than once. I try to only use paper in my packaging. I recently bought kraft paper tape to help the recyclable possibility of my packaging. I do not want to add to the problem. It is so big. Another documentary that I love/is terrifying is called: Plastic Paradise. To see these beautiful albatross birds being destroyed by our plastic trash is pretty terrible. This not a drill. We all know how long plastic has been around. Look at the damage it has done in just that many years. Don't get me wrong, plastic is so helpful sometimes. Medical equipment, grocery, farming, design...you name it, we can use it. WE have to start being more responsible with our waste and what we are actually mass producing plastic for. Do we really need to sell plastic water bottles to families who have perfectly good drinking water at home. I don't think so. I know so. Stop doing it, start demanding an alternative everywhere you go. Convince your parents! Convince your job. Convince your partner. Clean up your neighborhood. Get our there and fix it. ^^From this website^^
Here are small simple steps we can all take as consumers and humans, who share this beautiful environment. REFUSE disposable plastic. There are actually 4 R’s REFUSE, REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE 1) When you go to the coffee shop–bring your own mug, or if you are staying there for some time, ask for it in a “for here” mug. Baristas are so quick to automatically make your drink in a single disposable plastic cup. 2) Bring your own bag to the market or store. How many times have you got to the check out and they put it in a plastic bag before you even pay for it! We associate grocery bags as something easy to bring, but how about when you go shopping at the mall? If you are like me, I often forget. Solution? Keep a fold-able bag in your purse–they are small and compact. and you can to put all those fabulous deals in it instead of adding to your collection of tote bags that are piled up in your closet. oh wait. that’s my closet. 3) Carry a reusable stainless steel or aluminum water bottle instead of buying bottled water and install a filter at home. Have you ever tasted bottled water after its been in your car, under the sun? You can practically taste the plastic. Not only is it gross, but if you carry your own bottle, you wont be drinking water with harmful toxins like Bisphenol-A (it leaches out from the plastic into the water). If you don't know what this means, watch the documentary…again. 4) Say no to straws. Plastic straws make up over 33% of trash found on beaches. There are so many little ways that will make an impact.
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Today is my sister's twins birthday and this post is dedicated to them. They are only 4 and sometimes I think about what it will be like when they are old enough to pay taxes, buy cars or just be older. I try to picture them as teenagers, but mostly it's just a weird teenage body with their current baby head attached, which is in fact pretty strange... anyway what will life be like at 20 years old for these 2? They will be 20 in 2036. What a crazy sounding year. When I was little I thought the Jetson's lived in 2020 and I'm not seeing any flying cars or Rosie robots. Upon further research of course, the Jetson's lived in 2062 so there's still time for flying cars. I hope the world will be beautiful for my two nephews and everyone else who makes it that far. If we could all do a little better, it would make this all much easier. We could at least keep it nice for the rest of the future!
Every time we get a little snow, Andrew and I try to walk over to our next door park, Reese Park. It's a lovely bunch of little trails with a stream running through, small pond, and some neat bridges and my favorite old stone fences. I believe at some point Reese Park was a dump because every time you go off the path, you find some really old stuff laying about. Here are some treasures from our Waltz in Reese Park. From website: Reese Park is a 40 acre green space adjacent to the Wappinger Creek. The park has been preserved as an area to observe nature along scenic trails.
This park is named for Frances “Franny” Reese (1917-2003) spent 40 years making the Hudson Valley a better place. She was the guiding spirit of Scenic Hudson. She has a great quote I found on Scenic Hudson's site: Franny’s motto was: “Care enough to take some action; do your research so you don’t have to backtrack from a position; and don’t give up!” I think she and I would have been fast friends, and I hope she'd be happy I'm cleaning up this joint!! As you know, Andrew and I are always picking up garbage and recyclables near our apartment. We happen to live right above a creek, so our hope is to keep the garbage out of waterways here at our home. We start out by picking up around our place and then head down towards the creek. Wappingers Creek connects to the Hudson River up the stream from us, so it is actually a tidal creek. It rises and falls with the tide. Amazing I know. So, we were picking up some stuff today and this was our view. Just lovely. Sometimes we see bald eagles, swans, ducks and turtles. It's a great spot. Some internet facts: Wappinger Creek is a 41.7-mile-long (67.1 km) creek which runs from Thompson Pond to the Hudson River at New Hamburg in Dutchess County, New York, United States. It is the longest creek in Dutchess County, with the largest watershed in the county.
The local waterfall was important for early industrial development. In 1819 a small cotton mill was built in the hollow created by the creek as it descends from Wappinger Lake to drain into the Hudson River. By 1856 it had become one of the largest printworks in the country. I am still looking for more information on what sort of printing they did. I would love to know what kind of presses they were running back then! Peace out girl scouts. One thing I've noticed here in NY with all the snow and plowing is how much garbage gets scooped up and left on the side of the road. You think everything is fine during a good snow and then it all melts and looks like a damn mess on the side. It's a crying shame. Sometimes I just pull over on the side of the road and do a quick pick up. I always keep trash bags in my car, so this is no problem. It ain't easy being Trash Queeen Tean.
Speaking of Tean...I'm selling my tean bean cards on this site! I'm looking for ways to protect my shipments without using plastic. Let me know if you have any ideas! Here's something I was working on earlier this week. Recycled cereal boxes as packaging! Hooot see ya later taters. If you are like me, sorry for you! But anyway, I always wonder...is this crazy piece of packaging recyclable? If you also wonder that, check this site out: NPR's
PLASTICS What’s recyclable, what becomes trash — and why It' s a nice look into what actually happens to our trash. Bye for now. Clean up, clean up, everybody do your share. Image 1 is of a plastic bag flying high in the sky when I visited NYC. Every time I visit, I see one. Yikes.
Image 2 is from our hike to Ashokan High Point trail, that's a beautiful hike! Image 3 is to remember that we need to make things nice for the next crew. They like turtles too ya know. Even this giant one. Image 4 is just the truth and you needed to see it. Happy July folks! Just here to post some pics of our most recent Sunday trash pickup on 4/14. It's hard to move on to other pickup spots when your neighborhood stays trashy. I hadn't thought this out...so that stinks. Haven't gotten to Ketchamtown Rd or Rt 9 yet. At least the creek is clean in our area. It's a tidal creek, so when the tide goes up and out, the trash gets carried away quite frequently. Not so good for the waterways, folks. Everything eventually leads to the sea.
As William McDonough and Michael Braungart’s “Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things” (North Point Press, 2002) states, "The concept of throwing things “away” has, in effect, itself gone away. There is no such thing as “away” anymore." The Earth is a closed system, we should start working with that before it is too late. Hello, Welcome back! Yesterday was my birthday and you know what.... I picked up trash with my person for 2 hours. He asked me what I wanted to do, it was my day and I said, "Let's pick up trash!" I'm so glad he's into this mission. It's better with a team :-) It was an interesting day by the creek. I realized we may look like we are doing court appointed community service by the way people were staring. One truck stopped and said WHAT'S going on HERE?? I had to laugh, he was immediately wondering if we were up to no good as we loaded bags into my SUV...which I admit is pretty weird. A: WHAT'S going on HERE?? Me: We're picking up TRASH! A: WHY? Me: Because we are tired of seeing trash on the roadside. A: Oh....like you're doing this out of the kindness of your hearts?? Me: Yes. A: WELL, thank you. *Extends hand to meet me for real* Thank you all so much, this is really nice. I live around here and everybody has been using this road as a cut through and they are trashing the place. Me: I know and somebody really likes 22oz. Budweiser! It's everywhere over here!!! It was a treat to finally meet one of our neighbors. He was super nice after he realized we weren't stealing weird crap from his neighborhood, so that was cool. I WORK OUT For all you fitness peeps, picking up trash is like walking 3 miles and doing squats intermittently. It's like a workout that actually functions for something other than your own health/body image... here's my steps from Sunday's adventure. Just do it. This Sunday, March 31st Andy and I went over to Madam Brett Park in Beacon and took a look around. I had never been there. It is awesome. I thought maybe there wouldn't be a lot of trash at this park, so we brought one bag... we filled 5 bags of gross trash by the end of our tour. Right when we parked there was a ton of trash in the parking lot to be taken care of. I don't get it. How hard is it to dispose of your own stuff? It always seems to be worse by the waterways which just really steams my kettle. It was a nice walk and look around. Cool dam, walkways and bridges. We met a guy on the trail, we can call him BW. He brought us more trash! He said, "You guys inspired me to pick up some garbage while I was out here, I give you 0.75 karma points... and I don't give out karma points very easily!" What a treat. So the grand total of treats so far:
Here are some photos of the water and what I like to call the Barrel at Brett...wonder what's inside.
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AuthorWelcome to my trash blog. My whole life I've been picking up trash. I just loathe the sight of trash on the side of the road, on the ground or stuck in trees. It just really burns me up. So last weekend, we started the Great Trash Pickup of 2019. Just 2 of us with a couple of bags, gloves and a stick. Archives
August 2020
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