Pee in the woods, find a red mushroom

And other hiking opportunities

How do you get a 10 year old excited about an 12 mile hike?

A.) You pack freeze-dried jolly ranchers (they’re a thing wrapped in plastic)
B.) You create a scavenger hunt
C.) You bribe them (don’t judge)
D.) All of the above

Our kid has been hiking since her Ospray Poco child carrier days.

By eight, she was back-country camping on Catalina Island, stuffed wolf in tow.

But by ten, her enthusiasm was lagging and we were in Maine with our eye on the Fairy Head Loop. To make the hike more fun for her, I created a scavenger hunt:

• throw a rock in the ocean

• find a stick shaped like a person

• see a robin

• pee in the woods

As I was brainstorming, I came up with one I was particularly pleased about (in that mom sort of way): “Haul out a piece of trash that you find.”

For the first four miles or so, the hike didn’t have any trash along the trail. (Good job, Maine hikers!) Will we find none? I wondered. Will the goal be a bust? Then we came to a rocky beach, and I was so excited to spot an old plastic water bottle. (Yay, ocean trash!) Then I saw another. Then another. My husband found his trash. My daughter found hers. We filled our backpacks and still there was trash. Alas.

We picked up what we could and we left the rest, continuing our search for a robin.

The Fairy Head Loop

And guess what? We didn’t see a single robin or a chipmunk during the entire dang hike! We did see a snake, lots of frogs, and a bobcat, but no robin. No one completed their scavenger hunt, but this list idea is one I plan to return to for as long as my kid enjoys them. Next time, I’m thinking we’ll look for an ant carrying something or a bird chasing a crow or a blue mushroom.

What other ideas should be considered for our next hiking scavenger hunt? Quick! I’m not sure how many years this scavenger hunt idea is going to last.

I’m excited to make that next hunt and I know for sure that I’m going to include ‘pick up a piece of trash.’ Happy to be that mom. And even when my daughter outgrows scavenger hunts, I can still pick up plastic waste. And so can you.

Personal Action: When you’re out hiking, make it your goal to bring back at least one piece of trash that you see on the trail. Bonus for plastic.

More plastic found in Maine

Why it matters: Every piece of trash that you pick up is one less piece of trash for an animal to eat or for the rain to wash into a water system. I know it feels like a small action when compared to all the plastic out there. In fact, the UN Environment Programe has an interesting article about the tension between changing systems and trash pickups, and it concludes the two aren’t actually in conflict.

“Even if there is merit to the argument that the tap needs to be turned off before mopping the floor, there can be no denying the fact that volunteer cleanups protect wildlife, create momentum, raise awareness and save threatened habitats.”

And there’s nothing like actually picking up trash to be aware of how much we need to turn off the plastic tap. Which brings me to our public option . . .

Public Action: Turn off the plastic tap by asking a company you frequent to reduce their plastic consumption.

On our drive back to New York state, we stopped at Panera Bread to pick up our to-go order. I got salad, and it came in this:

Tasty salad: eaten. The plastic, though, will live on and on and on.

After feeling so good about removing plastic bottles from off the Maine coast, I now was part of the problem. Clamshells like this one can’t be recycled. I ate my salad, and while it was delicious, I prefer my healthy lunches without a side of guilt.

I got curious about how others felt about salads wrapped in plastic, and so I dug into the numbers. I assumed the number was around 100% of folks against plastic clamshells, but only a little more than half of American consumers surveyed preferred eco-friendly alternatives to single-used plastic packaging. Which is, totally, a start. And just guessing here, but now that microplastics have been found in human testacles, that number might already be a lot higher.

To get eco-friendly alternatives, we–the concerned–can shop with our dollars. We can also let companies know directly. Plastic Pollution Coalition has created a handy template consumers can use when they email companies and encourage them to reduce plastic packaging. I condensed the template to a few sentences, and through Panera’s website, I urged the company to switch to compostable to-go containers.

Why it Matters: When enough customers tell a company that plastic packaging is a turn off, the company will (eventually) listen. Together, we are powerful.

Link roundup

• While reading Soma Mei Sheng Frazier’s stunning novel, OFF THE BOOKS, I kept wondering if she was scared to write about the Uyghur genocide. I got to ask her that and more when I interviewed her for Electric Literature.

• Our family discovered an antidote for long driving days: cozy mysteries for kids. My daughter couldn’t get enough of the Fun Jungle series audiobooks. Start with Belly Up and see if you can figure out who murdered the hippo.

• My favorite plant this week: Joe-Pye Weed. The flowers are a hit with butterflies.

• What I’m (still) reading: The Warmth of Other Suns. I’m almost finished, and I can report that it’s excellent.