Molly Foster is changing Cape Breton's environmental culture, starting with kids

These in-their-own-words pieces are told to Patricia Lane and co-edited with input from the interviewee for the purpose of brevity.

Molly Foster is changing the culture in Nova Scotia. This 22 year old winner of The Starfish Canada’s "Top 25 Environmentalists under 25” award is an artist, writer and cofounder of Ripple, which uses local knowledge and experience to educate students from elementary school to university about environmental stewardship.

Tell us about your project.

There is a lot of garbage lying around Nova Scotia. The ocean brings it in and the wind blows it onto our beautiful beaches, magnificent forests, idyllic farm land and into our watersheds. But there is very little awareness of where it comes from and what to do with it. With my co-founder Ally Chant, I wrote a book called Every Little Bit which tells of a young girl who learns how shoreline and ocean pollution impacts Nova Scotian ecosystems and how litter cleanups can make a difference. She realizes every positive action, big or small, matters. 

We have partnerships with other organizations that bring the book into schools and read for us. We give keynote speeches and participate in panels. We lend out litter grabbers and other equipment to make organizing beach clean-ups easy, and educate about recycling options. We hold workshops to allow people to upcycle marine rope, so they can experience the material as something other than just garbage.

There are few resources available to educators in Nova Scotia schools and the ones that are there focus on other places which reduces their relevance. Every Little Bit is our first attempt to help make the environment matter at home. Now that we have released almost 500 copies of our book and I have finished my bachelor’s degree, it is time to scale up. I will be spending the next year helping local communities around Nova Scotia generate their own local stories of their history of environmental damage and successes in cleaning up.

How did you get into this work?

I grew up in Sydney, Nova Scotia, on forested land. Since Nova Scotia is so beautiful, it was natural to spend a lot of time outdoors. I met Ally Chant when we worked together at Atlantic Coastal Action Cape Breton (ACAP) teaching children about water protection. Last summer, their cleanup team picked up more than 7,000 kilograms of litter across Cape Breton Island. Since 2011, ACAP’s Cape Breton teams have cleared 50,000 kg of trash collected since 2011. The amount of trash collected per summer almost always rises.

What makes your work hard?

Like most environmental and climate solutions, it's like Leonard Cohen reminded us: “There are no perfect offerings.” This is not a project with an easily achievable perfect outcome. The wind will continue to blow garbage all over the province. Students ask me about impacts from wind farms and I have to tell them that while it is essential to stop burning coal, there are indeed negative side effects like disruption to bird and animal habitats.

Hurricane Fiona destroyed a lot of the forest near my home. It breaks my heart every day to see the destruction and know it will happen again, because we are so disconnected from nature that we continue to destroy it by burning fossil fuels and generating garbage.

What gives you hope?

Part of what we teach is that we are all part of imperfect systems. This makes it challenging, but it also reminds us that no single individual is responsible for cleaning up our entire environment. When we can make sense of our individual efforts as part of systems of change, we are less likely to thoughtlessly discard a plastic bottle. Children get this really fast once they see themselves as agents of change.

We can show people that their communities have succeeded in reducing pollution in the past. If we understand our community’s history, we can build a brighter collective future.

I supported the development of a coalition of faith groups that came together to support each other’s climate relief efforts. They planned fundraisers, held candlelight vigils for climate change, prepped for natural disasters, and helped each other get funding for sustainable energy upgrades in their own buildings. Watching these very different communities learn how to work together for the good of everyone was very inspiring.

What would you like to say to other young people?

There are a million ways to get involved. Don’t be afraid of steep learning curves. The community will support you if you show you care. Take yourself seriously, but don’t feel you have to learn everything immediately.

What about older readers?

Tell us your stories of how you made positive change in the past. We want to benefit from your experience.

Molly Foster is the co-author of “Every Little Bit.” She lives in Nova Scotia.