Bodily Fluids and Other Waste
Coming up with a theme to write about week after week is quite challenging, especially when I've not been doing anything of particular interest. This week I thought I'd just ramble on about various things which are happening this week.
It's proving to be a challenging time at the moment. For various reasons work has been particularly challenging of late, I've still been suffering from hayfever and I've a thing I'm waiting to hear about which is constantly in the back of my mind.
The hayfever has at least abated a little. My eyes are significantly better than they have been though I have developed a twitch in my left lower eyelid. Apparently eye twitches can be caused by eyes becoming dry (a symptom of hayfever) or from taking antihistamines. This leaves me in a confusing situation where I don't know whether to use the antihistamine eye spray or not. For the time being I'm left with another reason to feel self-conscious.
The main hayfever symptom I'm suffering from at the moment is a stream of snot coming out of my nose. I'll be perfectly fine until I walk certain rooms which seem to set it of. Using a tissue is not much more effective than using one in an attempt to stop the flow of Niagara Falls.
The worst example of this came when I went to give blood yesterday. One of the donor carers takes you into a very small 'room' in order to do your iron test and confirm your information. For some reason this room set my nose off. There's nowhere to hide when your in a room about the size of a toilet cubicle with another person and I felt so embarrassed as I tried to contain the flood of mucus. Hayfever really sucks.
It was my 19th blood donation yesterday and it's always a good feeling to know that I've done something which actually makes a difference for once. The NHS now send you a text telling you where your blood ends up which is really cool- my last donation when to Royal Marsden Hospital which is a cancer hospital in London. It's really satisfying to see how it it used. Plus they usually have nice biscuits too.
I came home to find that football was on the TV, a regular occurence now that the world cup has started. I have mixed feelings on the world cup and football in general. I'm the sort of geeky person that likes the statistics and there is something really satisfying about countries from all over the world coming together to compete at sport. But football is so slow. I get bored watching something which lasts for ninety minutes and a half-time break which is preceded and followed by seemingly endless discussion by inarticulate former players. For me, ten minutes of highlights for a match is enough.
One of the world cup sponsors is McDonald's who I was pleased to see this week are replacing plastic straws with paper ones. The UK currently throws away 8.5 billion straws every year. But that's just a tiny proportion of the world's plastic problem. Up to 12 million tonnes of plastic is entering our oceans every year, the equivalent of a full rubbish truck every minute.About a fifth of that rubbish comes from fishing materials and other materials lost at sea by accident, industrial losses or illegal dumping which means the other 80% comes from land.
It's probably obvious what the issue with this is. To many animals, plastic and other rubbish looks like food and inevitably they end up dying because of it. If it doesn't end up in their stomachs it may well end up tangling them up to the point they starve to death.
There are efforts to turn the problem with plastics around. A UN report has discovered that fifty nations are working on curbing the use of plastic. If everyone in the world picked up 5.3 buckets of plastic a year there would be no plastic waste in the rivers and seas. It's actually a genuinely achievable goal. I'm working hard on reducing my personal plastic use and over the summer will be heading out to pick up litter locally. For some ideas on reducing plastic use, check out this Buzzfeed article.
Goodness, that turned out to seamlessly come together didn't it? That was some thoughts on my week and other things too. Thank you as always for reading and I'll be back with more nonsense next week.
It's proving to be a challenging time at the moment. For various reasons work has been particularly challenging of late, I've still been suffering from hayfever and I've a thing I'm waiting to hear about which is constantly in the back of my mind.
The hayfever has at least abated a little. My eyes are significantly better than they have been though I have developed a twitch in my left lower eyelid. Apparently eye twitches can be caused by eyes becoming dry (a symptom of hayfever) or from taking antihistamines. This leaves me in a confusing situation where I don't know whether to use the antihistamine eye spray or not. For the time being I'm left with another reason to feel self-conscious.
The worst example of this came when I went to give blood yesterday. One of the donor carers takes you into a very small 'room' in order to do your iron test and confirm your information. For some reason this room set my nose off. There's nowhere to hide when your in a room about the size of a toilet cubicle with another person and I felt so embarrassed as I tried to contain the flood of mucus. Hayfever really sucks.
It was my 19th blood donation yesterday and it's always a good feeling to know that I've done something which actually makes a difference for once. The NHS now send you a text telling you where your blood ends up which is really cool- my last donation when to Royal Marsden Hospital which is a cancer hospital in London. It's really satisfying to see how it it used. Plus they usually have nice biscuits too.
I came home to find that football was on the TV, a regular occurence now that the world cup has started. I have mixed feelings on the world cup and football in general. I'm the sort of geeky person that likes the statistics and there is something really satisfying about countries from all over the world coming together to compete at sport. But football is so slow. I get bored watching something which lasts for ninety minutes and a half-time break which is preceded and followed by seemingly endless discussion by inarticulate former players. For me, ten minutes of highlights for a match is enough.
One of the world cup sponsors is McDonald's who I was pleased to see this week are replacing plastic straws with paper ones. The UK currently throws away 8.5 billion straws every year. But that's just a tiny proportion of the world's plastic problem. Up to 12 million tonnes of plastic is entering our oceans every year, the equivalent of a full rubbish truck every minute.About a fifth of that rubbish comes from fishing materials and other materials lost at sea by accident, industrial losses or illegal dumping which means the other 80% comes from land.
It's probably obvious what the issue with this is. To many animals, plastic and other rubbish looks like food and inevitably they end up dying because of it. If it doesn't end up in their stomachs it may well end up tangling them up to the point they starve to death.
There are efforts to turn the problem with plastics around. A UN report has discovered that fifty nations are working on curbing the use of plastic. If everyone in the world picked up 5.3 buckets of plastic a year there would be no plastic waste in the rivers and seas. It's actually a genuinely achievable goal. I'm working hard on reducing my personal plastic use and over the summer will be heading out to pick up litter locally. For some ideas on reducing plastic use, check out this Buzzfeed article.
Goodness, that turned out to seamlessly come together didn't it? That was some thoughts on my week and other things too. Thank you as always for reading and I'll be back with more nonsense next week.
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