impressions: stockton

we spent about 3 months in stockton. j picked it cause it paid well, was close enough to home so we could easily go back for the holidays, and (we thought) it was close to a lot of things in norcal: bay area, napa, tahoe, yosemite, etc. 

the first thing i noticed about stockton is that it was so many big beautiful trees! i kind of couldn't believe we had spent so much time fawning over the new england foliage when it was just as gorgeous here, and maybe even more so since it had the deeper reds of japanese maples and the bright yellows of ginkos. new england mostly has a smaller range of colors, tho it has many many more trees. 

i didn't mind stockton at all, even tho it ended up not being as close to things as we had thought. socal coastal privilege means that we didn't realize so many roads would close due to weather, lol. other than it's beautiful trees tho, stockton is kind of just any other californian city. i joked that it's the norcal bellflower or stanton. we also joked that it's "a plain woman who is past her prime." but seriously, it was fine. it also had a river running thru it, which, of course, i liked tho actually spent zero time at. we had a really lovely two bedroom house with a huge yard and a big ole pecan tree in the front yard. it was all very nice.

so many big leafy trees!

lots of sweet gum trees (look kind of like maple leaves), japanese maples, oaks, ginkos

big piles of leaves in the street waiting for "the claw"

big lawns

slanty residential sidewalks (so you can park half on/ half off)

more tailgating drivers

so many panhandlers...

(popular stockton trees list, and official stockton tree list as planted by the govt)

august and september 2024 donation

the annual long beach gives starts in september so this month i am doing my usual $25+ donation (plus because i donated the extra $1.62 to cover credit card costs) to both algalita and to moore institute.

january 2024 donation

this month i donated to grounds krewe, who's mission is "to promote waste prevention, recycling and sustainable products at new orleans special events."

being in louisiana has been a bit of an eye opener. j came first and said that we didn't have a recycling bin, only a trash bin. i arrived and saw, actually, we only had a recycling bin? i figured this because it's blue. but in looking around, all our neighbors had green and black bins only, no blue? then i noticed that many of our bins had different waste collection agencies printed on them, so i think they're just... randomly distributed? i haven't been able to google anything solid on when trash pickup day is, or what they collect either; it's a mess.

speaking of mess, i've been going out to some mardi gras parades and they amount of waste is astonishing! float people throw stuff out at the crowd and, since it's free stuff, it's poorly made stuff. most times, people to catch the stuff, but often times, it hits the ground first which means that it breaks. and since there's constantly free stuff being thrown out, no one really cares for the broken stuff. here in slidell, parades are fridays, saturdays, and sundays. with one or two parades a day. for the regular parades, they city does NOT supply extra trash cans (or even port-o--potties), and neither is the stuff cleaned up after each parade. it is mostly picked up by monday morning though. storm drains are generally blocked, so stuff is mostly prevented from getting in there, but for the BOAT PARADES, people also just throw stuff up at people on land so A LOT of it ends up in the water! I did not see a boat with a pool net picking stuff up either...

so they don't seem to recycle here (tho there are drop off locations for recycling, which, let's face it, very few people will do), aren't particularly mindful of litter, and i don't think i've seen a single person use a reusable bag (I have not noticed about water bottles or reusable cups). ugh. nola DOES have a refill store tho, which we visited earlier this week, and I did pick up a few non-plastic sponges and a brush. (I messed up and didn't buy the dish soap, bah).

anyway, so i donated to grounds krewe because they're trying to do something about the incredible waste that comes with mardi gras.

refocus

this month I went to Tennessee with the girls. we had planned to take a trip together for our 30th birthday, but for some reason or another, we didn't do it. we did manage this year tho! we took about a 8 day trip, which included nashville, gatlinburg, the great smoky mountains, and knoxville. ac and i extended our trip two extra days to visit memphis.

this trip was great fun! it was our first time all traveling together and i think it went real,ly well! sure, there were little frictions here and there but i think all those smoothed over quite quickly. it was really interesting since while we grew up together, we haven't spent that much time together as a total group since school. even in college or after, we would reunite for a few hours for someone's birthday (or a wedding!) but nothing ever more than overnight.

i do fairly frequently say that we're friends now because we were friends then. but if we had all met now, we likely wouldn't be friends. certainly not all five of us, and i wonder if any pair of us would be real friends if we met now. it's not just the geographical thing, but we're all really quite so different.

outside of everything, for me, this trip made me want to refocus my work back into environmentalism, or at least environmental adjacent.

most everyone in my life now is so "normal" in their consumerism. j, of course, not withstanding. most everyone else (my family, friends, coworkers) seem to only not buy things because they can't afford it. need barely factors. i don't even mean real actual need, but just regular need.

being with my friends that week, being with them all day, i got to see habits like what, how, and when we eat and what we buy and for how much. it was interesting. the last few years, i've seen people around me live their lives and each time i feel a little void between us. that trip, being with them all week, i felt more of that void than ever. it made me wonder what i was doing, and why, and if it was really what i wanted.

and, honestly, yes; it is what i want. i want to be actively engaging in conscious decision making. and i want to be a good person, doing what i can to create a better environment around me. (environment not just used in the nature / green sense) and that environment means the people i surround myself with. i want to be more with people who inspire me to do better, be better, live better. not people who make me question my morals.

i certainly won't be throwing off my friends or family because they unthinkingly use single-use plastics or anything like that. but i can choose to engage more with the "green" community, whether thru social groups or professionally. and because i don't really like making new friends, making them thru work would be the easiest thing to help keep me on track.

so while i wanted to get away from environmentalism after algalita (because emotionally it was hard to see 8 years of work "down the drain", i think i may be ready to return again. the work at hbcfl makes me feel good, certainly, but it is a bit too far removed for me as well. i need to find a better balance of professional and personal fulfillment. i think, when possible, i would like to volunteer with food orgs when we're away. i really do hope to use this time to explore, not just the country, but myself. i want to know myself better and better myself as well.

september 2023 double donation

this month, I did my annual giving to algalita for their long beach gives campaign. i've been wanting to help out more but, honestly, i've been too lazy to volunteer. plus, i don't have that many saturday mornings open either. but last month they put a call out for two types of volunteers: 1. for dsi kits and 2. to help proof their wayfinder society website. i wanted to do both, but the dsi kits were mostly being assembled during normal work hours so that was out for me. but i did put in a good number of hours testing their website, so i feel pretty good about that.

my time at algalita wasn't all great all the time, especially the last year + but i do still really value my time there and still feel very lucky to have worked there with so many passionate people. it was a life changer for me in many ways. 

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gave another $26.62 ($25 plus the credit card transaction fee) this month to the moore institute for plastic pollution research, which is algalita's sister org. moore institute focuses on research, and algalita on education. 

algalita blew thru their $5k goal (with $8,746 raised as of 9/22 at 9:30am), but moore institute is really struggling with only $396 raised of their $2000 goal. :( that $396 includes my donation, btw. tho i wish i had paid better attention when donating and i would've chipped in an extra $5 to get them over the $400 mark.

january & feburary 2023 donation

i did a two-month $50 total donation this time. I was coming out of Trader's Joe and was stopped by a nature conservancy solicitor. i was planning to only donate a month, but he said that it reflected negatively on them if people signed up for one month, then dropped it immediately so he asked that i do two months before cancelling. so, well, sure, why not. it's been a while since I've done an environmental group anyway and nature conservancy does do good work. 

december 2022 donation

for my last monthly donation of 2022, i donated to clean the world. i forget how i heard about them, but it must have been originally thru the soap donation program. 

"Clean the World was founded in 2009 to address global health issues by using discarded hygiene supplies from the hospitality industry. Aiming to reduce the number of hygiene-related deaths, it began recycling soap into new bars to distribute to communities in need.

"In 2015, Clean the World joined forces with the Global Soap Project, resulting in a consolidated nonprofit mission under the banner of Clean the World Foundation.  The consolidation allowed us to go beyond just hygiene to include programs addressing sustainable access to water, sanitation, and feminine hygiene as well"

AND apparently you can volunteer there! next time i can convince my friends to volunteer with me in vegas, i'm totally doing it!!

september 2022 donation

this month i gave to algalita for long beach gives. they have a matching donor which is really great! so i w
as especially happy to donate to them this month.

free trees

i never really liked my previous made-up non-profit which was basically RIP Medical Debt because it doesn't actually address the issue. sure, it helps people, but it doesn't fix the bigger problem.

so i came up with a new non-profit! we would partner with local nurseries and buy like a half dozen variety of native trees, load them up in a truck, and drive around neighborhoods knocking on people's doors asking if they want a free tree. we would have a binder with info about the types of trees: how they'll look when they mature, how long that will take, maintenance, etc. so they can make informed decisions. we would also have either volunteers or day laborers (whom we would pay) to plant the tree. and we would leave a brochure behind with how to care for the it,

why?

• trees look nice
• trees are good for the environment in a lot of ways (invites wildlife, stabilizes soil, makes oxygen, etc.)
• trees cool homes and streets which is good for not just that particular homeowner who enjoys the shade, but if you have enough shady trees, it literally cools whole neighborhoods
• we would plant native trees, or at least nothing terribly invasive
• can also plant fruit trees!
• by partnering with local nurseries, we support local economies and communities
• if we hired day labors, we would also doubly be supporting local economies and communities
• "easy" for volunteers. as in, very little training and commitment with instant gratification. tho they would need to be in reasonably good shape.
• convenient for homeowners
• long lasting, easily duplicatable, numbers driven results (which is good for funders)

yeah, honestly, i only came up with this like last week, but i am SO into this! not quite wanting to actually start this non-profit on my own or anything, but way more jazzed about this than the last one i made up.

ewg

I recently had a couple friends ask me about laundry detergent. I didn't have a recommendation but I did refer them to the Environmental Working Group's laundry detergent rating page. the EWG is a great resource that I've used more and more often to see what products are actually environmentally friendly. they mostly look at how dangerous the chemicals are but also rate other things too, depending on what type of things you're looking at. they rate a lot of things, from cleaning products to cosmetics to food (I looked up sunscreen a couple months ago), and rate conventional brand names to smaller purported eco brands as well. 

apparently they have an app too, which I haven't used, since I really don't shop very much at all. but I'll definitely be consulting the EWG on future purchases, especially since greenwashing is getting crazy out of hand these days!

clothing

Generation Z & The Fast Fashion Paradox

I'm not gen z, and I don't do fast fashion, but clothing is definitely my biggest consumer weakness. it's worse too because I wear mostly synthetics tho I, obviously, know better. I justify it to myself in saying that I'm upgrading my wardrobe to better brands which use better quality materials so items last longer and shed fewer micro-plastics. and yeah, I actually have cycled out all my columbia fleeces for north face, marmot, and arc'teryx. I also never buy new, because used is cheaper but also more environmentally friendly. I also try to sell all my clothes rather than donating them because there's more control that it doesn't end up in landfill. 

but regardless of those reasons, I still have way too much clothes =\ I literally have like 10 fleeces. different weights, but several at each weight. it's also really ridiculous because I only wear certain colors so it's even more pronounced that I have too much. I sometimes blame my completist inclinations. when I was much younger I would try to finish everything in a series: nancy drew, stephen king, etc. I definitely still have a little of that now, but it's less pronounced. 

I don't even think it's the clothes itself (studies confirm it usually isn't), but the excitement of getting a good deal, of winning an auction, of having something come in the mail, of getting something new. realizing this, I've more recently told myself that a good deal is not good enough. good thing J is much better at that, lol. we were at grocery outlet and they had a $20 bottle of sake that used to be like $80 and I really wanted to get it. not because I like sake, but because it was such a good deal! we ended up not buying it because neither of us really likes sake and my reasoning for wanting it was really stupid. tho had I been shopping by myself, I might have bought it. ugh.

for 2021 I'm going to focus on narrowing down my closest. that doesn't mean I can't buy anything new, but I do think I want to do the one thing in one thing out rule. and, more importantly, really focus more on the purging. I probably have 20 dresses total? for some reason, I love buying them but am always too "embarrassed" to wear them. buy for your actual life, not the life you want, or some saying like that. 

my purchasing guidelines for new things: economics, ethics, and the environment. not necessarily in that order. 

may 2020 donation

this month I donated $30 to a friend's pet food bag terracycle box campaign! so many of the things we put into our recycling bin can't be recycled, but terracycle is a company that specializes in recycling difficult to recycle products. in this case, jojo bought 3 boxes to be placed in different locations. boxes cost about $130 and cover shipping costs both ways, plus some extra.

harm vs harm

I've been thinking a lot about harm lately, and unintended consequences. you cannot live life without causing harm. and it's not even as easy as trying to live causing the least amount of harm possible because sometimes it's impossible to weigh.

at our office, sometimes even deciding where to eat brings up a lot of questions. do we get slightly better tasting burritos at whole foods which is owned by amazon which annually produces nearly as much carbon as swizerland or denmark? not to mention all their terrible workers' rights issues, and lack of paying taxes. or do we get not as tasty burritos at chronic taco which probably also does a lot of terrible things that we just don't know about because they're not as closely scrutinized as amazon?

and that's just lunch! where do you stand on bioplastics or the conventional kind?

a lot of people would say, bioplastics, of course, because it doesn't come from petroleum, and it has a smaller carbon footprint because most oil doesn't come from america anyway. but that's just the oil aspect. most bioplastic in the states is made from corn since we have govt subsidies for that. but it's those same subsidies which ultimately led to high fructose corn syrup in everything because we have too much corn and the govt asked scientists to come up with ways to use it up. and, while both oil and corn require water, corn requires more land and possibly causes more water pollutants because of fertilizers and pesticides. oil has led to war, which farming hasn't as much, but our modern conventional farming has led to hella cancers and also involves migrant workers / illegal immigration issues which oil likely has too much definitely on a smaller scale.

end of life is murky too. bioplastics are rarely recycled or composted. in fact, they actually contaminate regular plastic recycling and most waste haulers don't even want it. almost all bioplastics end up in landfill where they don't biodegrade at all, but do release methane, which regular plastic doesn't. methane, of course, contributes to increased greenhouse gases which aggravates climate change.

so, which is better? well, they both suck. just in different ways.

I tell the customers to decide what matters most to them (for me, i sacrifice taste and eat at chronic because i don't like to support amazon), and not worry too much about the rest. i also suggest they do research so they can make informed decisions, but as demonstrated above, sometimes it's the knowing too much that makes it impossible to make decisions!

articles about bioplastic here and here
fact sheet about bioplastic

i also want to emphasize that a lot of the bioplastic on the market isn't even 100% plant based plastic. something is considered bioplastic even if it's a blend of plant based and petroleum based plastics.

cuprite2

while i think the cuprite system would work, i definitely have reservations about it. i think if i were to address take-away coffee shops, it might work best to open my own damn drink shop and implement the following rules:

- no disposable cups, plates, coffee stirrers, etc. minimal disposable anything else
- we have real cups, plates, silverware, etc. for you to use in store
- want it to go? bring your own cups and containers for food
- want it to go but forgot your containers? pay a $2 "deposit" and take something from the "donation" bin
- you bring back something from the donation bin, or you make a flat out donation of stuff, you get $1 back per item up to $5 or $10
- possibly have a public sink for people to wash out their stuff

why don't they get their full deposit back? this will encourage them to bring their own cup. we don't really care if we get that cup back. we want them to bring their own.

cuprite

doing what we do, we meet a lot of people with a lot of different ideas on how to attack plastic pollution. last week we talked to two recent college grads who have an idea on reusable coffee cups and a community rental program: CupRite.

i don't totally understand how it's supposed to work. but based just the video, i have a few suggestions. (honestly, i'm writing this post because I haven't really stopped thinking about it since saturday when we met the girls)

- each store buys a certain number of cups. a 4-digit (or whatever) code is engraved on the inside bottom of each cup (that way cups only empty cups can be returned). that code corresponds to the store so you can track, per store, number returned, and lost and damaged cups. also behavioral things like what distance do people go, how many days does it take to return. 

- lock the drop off box (people will steal cups out of unlocked boxes; who will pay to get new ones?). the box can be unlocked with the same 4-digit code engraved inside the cup (so the lock will have to have multiple unlock codes [not sure if that's possible]).

- this probably works best in a closed environment (college or larger work campus with drop boxes inside each building), that way you might not even need lock boxes or codes. tho, again, you can track behavioral things with the codes.

- you can also make this into an app where people have to enter the location code where they drop off the cup (which can also give them an unlock code to the box, so the engraved number is just a store ID). eventually you'll know who is fake returning cups and charge those people. (you get cc info when they sign up. if they return all their cups, they never get charged. or you can do a deposit system. you can even allow them on lost cup within a time period or number of uses. you can also incorporate this into loyalty program of certain $% off their 11th cup or whatever)

it ain’t easy being green

I forget what my 2017 new year’s resolution was. I’m pretty sure it was to eat less beef, which I totally have. I did it because our “regular” cows are terrible for the environment. they hella pollute our land, air, and water. damn things taste so good tho!

this year I’m going to focus on lessening my overall negative environmental impact. starting last week, lol. I’ve always donated lightly used items rather than throwing them away, and have always been careful about conserving electricity and water, and, of course, recycling paper, aluminum, and common plastics. since volunteering with SoCal harvest a number of years ago, I’ve also been pretty aware of my food waste and convinced my dad to get a compost bin for our yard. and I think he’s also on the verge of getting a rain barrel, yahoo! of course, since volunteering with algalita I’ve cut more and more plastics out of my life and have mostly stopped frivolous shopping too.

but the other day, ab said something that really got me thinking. she said that ocean institute had asked her to give a 20 minute talk at their facility down in Dana Point, which is a 60-90 minute drive from here. I said that is they were also willing to compensate her driving time... she said that even so, it wouldn’t be worth the greenhouse gases of driving down there. she is so right!

I don’t mind driving, long distances anyway. and I always try to carpool, take efficient driving routes, and don’t idle my car for more than a couple minutes (more than a minute or two, the co2 released is more than how much you would produce turning off the car and restarting it). but I really don’t think anything of driving 40 minutes away for a meal. and while I think about riding my bike to work, if I’m honest, I haven’t really seriously considered it. well, I’m gonna. ...not bike to work. it’s winter and too damn cold. but if I need to go to stater brothers up the street, I’m going to bike. and when it gets warm again I’m really really going to consider biking to work and especially to practice. and maybe get a skateboard so I won’t drive to whole foods for lunch. ...tho first learning to be way better at skateboarding, ha. tell ya what tho, I’m probably going to eat out less too. it’s not that great for the environment either. I’ll be working at the farmers market once a month anyway so can get locally sourced stuff there. ...now to learn to cook...

I’m really really gonna stop buying bottled shampoo and body wash, even the refill stuff. I’m gonna remember to avoid stuff with palm oil and too many chemicals. I’m going to pay more attention to where my food comes from and try harder to eat locally and less processed stuff and less meat in general. I’m going to start asking more often for “no straw please” and bringing my bento box for leftovers when I do eat out. and more! oy, there’s a lot to remember and do but it’ll totally be worth it!!

china notes 1

Airports

The check-in process at the chengdu and xian airports are the most confusing I've navigated, and I've gone thru quite a few airports, big and small. It's worse than even the train stations.

PEK (Beijing airport) is HUGE. seriously. They have buses to drive you from your gate to the plane. I was on that bus for like 20 minutes, no joke. I mean, we weren't speeding along at 60mph but it wasn't slow either. 

Security - What are all these security checks for? Transferring at PEK I had to go thru another security line were I had to get my passport, visa, ticket checked, toss my liquids (again), walk thru that scanner thing, and get a very thorough pat down. (...I should remember to go back to wearing regular bras [rather than unlined bralettes] when flying in China. They even run their hands down your legs when you aren't wearing pants.) When boarding you get your tickets scanned, as you walk thru the corridor thing to the plane another dude checks it again, and on the plane once more. ...flying out of PEK to LAX, when in the corridor thing between the gate and the plane, they physically went thru my purse (good thing I'd checked my bag) and made me toss my water which I had just filled at the water station at my gate! ugh. such a waste.

The liquid checks are getting ridiculous. They used to just scan or run a metal detector wand thing on you when you entered the subway, but now you have to take out your water bottle and they put it on some machine thing that does something; I'm not sure what. "Good thing" nearly everyone in China has either single-use water bottles or clear plastic water bottles. I think I would have difficulty with my usual stainless steel water bottle.

Trash / recycling - I didn't see any single bins, they always come in a pair. However, people don't recycle properly anyway. I often times saw single-use bottles in the non-recycle bin. I think because China has to employ sooo many people, a lot of them are trash pickers. So the regular person doesn't have to take personal responsibility for their waste. Probably why there's so much littering also, because you know that within half an hour some street cleaning person will be along to pick up after you. It's not that they think about the street cleaner, but when you litter but are rarely confronted with the consequence of it, you stop thinking about it as a negative act.

Also, I was hoping to find and bring home some leashed bottle cap / single-use bottles (as M saw in Japan). Unfortunately not only did I not see any of those, but many of their aluminum cans don't even have pop tops; they're still pull tabs!! I wish I had paid more attention to the brands, but I tried to use as little single-use anything as I could, which was NOT easy. 

They use inch-long pins instead of paper clips. Seems dangerous

Dogs - so many now! Even saw a dog park in Chengdu. Lots of weather inappropriate dogs tho, poor over-heated things

Way more fat people, obese even. 

Bathrooms - ugh. I figured out a couple years ago that handicap stalls contain a western toilet. This year I did a lot of traveling to remote scenic places tho so I knew I couldn't expect that. Still, I wasn't expecting so many of the trough style toilets. And ones with only half tall walls and no door either! Funny thing tho, from the stains on the walls, it's clear that Chinese women haven't figured out which way to face either. UGH

not holier than thou

Breaking: We’re ignorant and lazy consumers who judge people for doing the right thing

"Researchers have found that a) we’re lazy when it comes to investigating the ethics of our purchases, and b) we resent those who do take the time to research the social and environmental impacts... then opt for a more ethical alternative."

at algalita we try not to guilt people into using less plastic. it makes them resent us, we know. we also don't want to shock anyone into agreeing with us (the way peta does sometimes with their campaigns). but it's hard then, to get your message across. what is the best way to get people to change their habits? we don't know. we use education. we explain the issue, and let the data / images speak for themselves. but we don't don't use clickbait, we don't post super graphic photos, and we don't talk anyone's ear off when they clearly don't care.

we also try to lead by example, of course, but i think that only goes so far.

recork tally

FINALLY dropped off the last of my corks. finally, i say again!

585 natural corks and 59 synthetic corks

this drive was actually really easy since i didn't really have to do much. corks are small, easy to store, and don't smell bad. also, i only had to drive to the local bevmo to drop them off.

HUGE thank you to ting who helped me collect over half these corks!! i guess she has a lot of drinkers in her office. ;)

btw, i would like to encourage you to make an effort to purchase wine using natural corks. they are a million times better for the environment, and possibly even better for the wine. even if you don't recycle said cork, it has the possibility of biodegrading, whereas plastic never ever ever fully goes away from the environment.

small world!!

i was at mike's house the other week and for some reason i thought to mention that i was entering the 5 gyres contest. he perked up a bit and went to another room and came back with the book plastic ocean asking if i'd read it. coincidentally i hadn't read it, but did own it, and in fact had even held up the book in my video, haha! here's the crazy part. mike's neighbor wrote the book. and mike is mentioned in it. and the reason mike knows much about gyres in general is cause he was with the author when he first like "discovered" the "garbage patch."

amazing cool!

since then mike has been EXTRA amazing. he wrote the nicest things on fb reminding people to vote. and he even talked to author captain moore about me to see if he had room for me on his next trip with his own organization: algalita marine research institute. the last few years i've really come to love mike. he's is always supportive and i have always so appreciated his giving me the chance to run the steering program all those years ago. he's taught me so much and i've really come to think of him as my mentor. :) so lucky to know him!