Northshore Magazine

Northshore October 2018

Northshore magazine showcases the best that the North Shore of Boston, MA has to offer.

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119 Boomerang Bangs The city of Boston will ban single-use checkout bags beginning in December of this year, which is good news for the environment, but a problem remains: Low-income families and seniors often can't afford to buy reusable bags. Enter Sierra Rothberg and her 12-year-old daughter, Calida Beliveau. Rothberg started Boomerang Bags Boston, a chapter of an Australian- based organization that provides washable, reusable bags to communities that need them. Her work earned her the W2O 2018 Ocean Spirit Award from Women Working for Oceans. Calida had been a passionate and vocal advocate for Boston's bag ban for years, and when her mother learned that access to reusable bags was a barrier to the city passing the bag ordinance, she sprang into action. With the help of the Girl Scout troop Rothberg leads, plus talented friends, volunteer sewers, weekend sew-a-thons, and people donating materials, Boomerang Bags Boston has created more than 2,000 beautiful reusable bags, and is making more all the time. Some of the bags will be given directly to shoppers, while others will be given to organizations that will lend them to customers. For instance, Rothberg says Boston Medical Center's food bank has 1,200 borrow-and- bring-back bags that it will begin providing to clients later this year. Now Rothberg is working to expand the program as much as possible. She says it was an honor to be recognized for her work by W2O. "How can we support our low-income families and seniors? This is how we can do that," she says. "You're just feet on the ground, doing the things you know how to do." and Seamounts Marine National Monument, a 4,913-square-mile swath of now-protected ocean mountains and canyons off the coast of Massachusetts that's home to a huge array of cold-water coral and other marine life. "ey got very, very actively involved," Brooks says. "We all pitch in wherever help is needed." Brooks, Burgess, and many other members also attended the eelgrass-planting event, led by Alyssa Novak, Ph.D., a research assistant professor at Boston University's Department of Earth & Environment, to try to restore eel- grass in Essex Bay. "Eelgrass is important be- cause it provides a lot of ecosystem services," Novak says. It provides a "nursery" for baby marine animals, including ones that are en- dangered and commercially important. It also improves water clarity and purity, absorbs excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, provides storm-surge barriers, and stabilizes the sea floor. Novak explains that eelgrass was eradicat- Calida Beliveau and and Sierra Rothberg started Boomerang Bags Boston To learn more about Boomerang Bags Boston, including how to help, visit lusterity.com/boomerangbagsboston. ed from Essex Bay likely due to a combination of factors, including wasting disease, water- shed development, clamming, and too many green crabs, and the W2O event was part of her effort to restore it. Novak adds that the W2O members had "an awesome time" and also learned how to monitor the eelgrass growth. "It was a really positive experience of just getting in the water, getting your hands deep down into the ocean, and planting," Burgess says. In addition to facilitating events like eelgrass planting, W2O also hosts a range of other events, like panel discussions and pres- entations from scientists at the New England Aquarium's IMAX eatre, a sunset sail in Boston Harbor to learn about the endangered North Atlantic right whale, and an upcoming sew-a-thon on October 24 to make reusable shopping bags (see Boomerang Bags). All of these events support W2O's three main advocacy pillars: addressing plastic pollution and advocating for plastic bag bans, whale conservation, and protecting the North- east Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument. ey also often involve what Burgess describes as W2O's "secret sauce:" building strong working relationships among diverse groups of stakeholders through face-to-face conversations. For instance, W2O has con- vened meetings between engineers and marine scientists to discuss the stress ship engine noise causes to marine animals, and has met with leaders from the lobstering community about keeping animals safe from fishing gear entanglement, while also supporting and respecting the fishing industry. Burgess says W2O has the role of getting people together and forging connections to approach problems in new ways. "It's a dif- ferent conversation," she says. "We just want to help in any way we can get this solved." womenworkingforoceans.org

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