ABOUT EASTERN PASSAGE
Eastern Passage is a small community located on the southeastern edge of the Halifax Harbour. Prior to the industrialization by European settlers, this community was the seasonal home for local indigenous peoples, the Mi’kmaq. Eastern Passage can be characterized by its abundant fishing industry as well as the presence of CFB Shearwater, a military air base constructed during WW1. Additionally, there are oil refineries and an auto import/export facility that define this industrial area. Recently, Eastern Passage has had transportation extensions into the community, better connecting it to the “Downtown Halifax” core through transit routes and major highways. This has allowed residents and tourists to have easier access to Eastern Passage!
Because of this increased human activity, there has been an influx of debris in the environment, as well as massive amounts of end of life fishing gear as a result of the fishing community.
Our local BlueCommunities partner in Eastern Passage is Scotian Shores, a NGO that take action to keep their local shorelines clean.
LOCAL GOALS
UNITED NATIONS SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS
OUR LOCAL PARTNER
In the Summer of 2020, Scotian Shores began their journey of making the shorelines of Eastern Passage, and greater Nova Scotia, a little cleaner while creating awareness of the plastic pollution crisis. Over the last year they have grown from one family into a community of cleaners helping to inspire others to join them! To date, their team of #OceanWarriors, volunteers, other amazing clean up groups that collect data and the large scale clean ups they organize have helped remove almost 100,000 pounds of debris from the shorelines! They support their initiatives by selling locally made and repurposed products.
SHORELINE CLEANUPS
Scotian Shores focuses on coordinating groups to clean up shorelines in Eastern Passage and across the province of Nova Scotia. Whenever possible, Scotian Shores takes reasonable efforts to recycle or repurpose debris found during these cleanups. Since Scotian Shores started in August of 2020, almost 100,000 lbs of debris have been removed from the province’s shorelines. With Plastic Oceans Canada’s help, Scotian Shores will be able to better collect data of what we’re finding along our shorelines as well as to increase awareness of our work and create meaningful connections with like minded organizations around the world.