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Presentation to Master Gardeners
Presentation to Master Gardeners
June is a popular month for conferences this year. The Missouri Master Gardener conference was this weekend, and I did an hour-long presentation on Plastics/Microplastics on Saturday!
The ‘room’ was a curtained off corner of a ballroom! I arrived early since I was using my own Mac for the slideshow and I wanted to make sure it connected with the AV system in the room. The connection was easy (HDMI) but the set up was awkward with a table for the laptop against the same wall as the screen. I managed.
There were twelve people in the audience….they all seemed to be very engaged and the 20 minutes I had reserved for questions and discussion was filled with great interactions and afterward I got 2 master naturalists requests (one wanting to get on the core training contact list and another wanted to transition from another chapter to the Springfield one)….and then there was person that wants to write an article about my topic for a Missouri journal. It was an hour well spent! It occurred to me that the charts I prepared for this talk will just be a baseline that I will tweak for all my subsequent presentations; there is new information coming out all the time and I will always add charts to focus on the aspects of microplastics that would be of most interest to the particular audience (in this case it was gardeners).
The only handout I had was my ‘reduce your microplastic exposure’ mind map and several people picked one up as the presentation time ended. I had put some blank paper in with the mind map pages too…and am glad I did – since that is how I got contact info for follow-up!
This is my first hour long presentation in a long time. I did a few shorter ones in Maryland, but they were usually associated with a hike (searching for skunk cabbage is one I remember) or an activity (creating Zentangle tiles). It was a skill that I used frequently during my career…but that frequency ended 14 years ago. Based on the way I felt during the presentation and reaction from the audience, it is a skill I have easily refreshed.
Posted on 06/07/2026 by Gwen Morrison
Lemon Juice In Glass
Lemon Juice In Glass
I recently found lemon juice in a green glass bottle – that I hadn’t found in the store before. Previously I had made a special shopping trip to a store than carried a brand of lemon juice in glass, so this new development has eliminated that special shopping trip. I like the shape and color of this packaging too.
Perhaps it is an indicator that retailers/manufacturers are beginning to get the idea that food – particularly acidic or fatty foods – should not be in plastic. The lemon juice is organic too! The distributor is in the US, but the label clearly says that it is a Product of Italy. Does that mean it might have a 10% tariff on it? Why aren’t US distributors and manufacturers more engaged in the transition to better packaging?
On another front – I am slowly using up tea bags that might have plastic fibers in them. From now on, I will cut the bags open and dump the leaves in the pot. That will eliminate the burst of microplastics from the fibers when they are exposed to heat…but it is messy too since the tea leaves in the bags are so powdery; I will use a metal strainer, but it will probably will not catch them all.
It’s always challenging to really eliminate sources of microplastics!
Posted on 6/23/2026 by Gwen Morrison
Mowed Trash
Mowed Trash
I hate it when I don’t see a plastic snack wrapper in the grass….hear the change in the mower as it shreds the trash. It’s still macro plastic – big enough to pick up – although more work since it is in smaller pieces. I think this one was Oreo cookies. Neither my husband or I eat them, but someone did and the wrapper escaped. If it was paper I could simply leave it to decay.
Mowing is likely one of the interim steps that is quite common with plastic trash along roadside that will become microplastics more quickly than they would have otherwise. There are people that pick-up trash along roadsides, but they probably don’t pick up any of the mowed bits.
Posted on 6/23/2026 by Gwen Morrison
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