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☂️Evening thunderstorms, with highs in the 60s. Sunset is at 7:27 p.m.
With the Boston Marathon just four days away, our colleagues at GBH’s Boston Public Radio have been talking about the environmental impact of the race. In 2023, the marathon produced emissions equal to driving a gas-powered car for 9 million miles, as well as 64.7 tons of waste. The first step in reducing that impact was calculating it, said Scott Stover, chief marketing officer for the Boston Athletic Association. The next step is actually doing the work. “Every year it’s these little incremental pieces,” he said. “This past November, at our half marathon at Franklin Park, we replaced all of our diesel generators in the park with electric generators. And that makes a huge difference. It’s a big impact, not only on the emissions, but the noise, the odors.”
Another step: dealing with the many cups runners chug from and toss along the route. The cups that volunteers hand out at hydration stations from Hopkinton to Boston are compostable, Stover said. Volunteers pick them up and make sure they get to the proper composting facility. You can learn more about the process here — and keep reading for a look into creating more sustainable running shoes.
Four Things to Know
1. The owner of Boston’s first cannabis dispensary, Pure Oasis, said he is trying to make sure he can pay his staff and debts after closing its shops in Grove Hall and Downtown Crossing last week. The state’s Department of Revenue froze the company’s bank account over $300,000 in unpaid taxes. Co-owner Kobie Evans said he has already been approved for a state grant from the Cannabis Social Equity Trust Fund to pay off that debt. It’s not yet clear if the stores will reopen.
The company also owes $65,000 to a supplier and is facing a $175,000 lawsuit from a construction company working on its planned third location in Brighton. On top of that, Evans said, customers are struggling and have less disposable income to spend on cannabis. “I haven’t been able to actualize those feelings yet because we’re in limbo with [the] DOR, and I have 60 staff members that haven’t been paid,” Evans said. “Every day it becomes harder and harder. Every day staff have to go out and find a new job. Every day staff have to make life choices. And every day you’re not open, that’s income you don’t have.”
2. Lawmakers in the Massachusetts House want to keep the amount of funds they give to cities and towns in check, increasing it by about 5% to $10 billion in their proposed budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1. Most of that money would go to local schools. With federal aid declining and costs rising, the Massachusetts Municipal Association asked for a 26% increase in the smaller pot of money cities and towns can use for any purpose they chose. House Ways and Means Committee Chair Aaron Michlewitz called that request “unrealistic” — though it will still go up 1%, to a total of $1.3 billion statewide.
One area that could see more funding under the House proposal: a fund to promote big sports and entertainment events in the state, paid for with taxes on sports betting. “I think the idea here is to show that we are open for folks that want to bring those types of events here to Massachusetts,” Michlewitz said. “They’re great revenue sources. They’re great job opportunities for folks here in Massachusetts. We want those types of events to come here.”
3. The vast majority of people in Massachusetts prisons — more than 8 in 10 — are using tablets for education and vocational classes, according to officials with the state’s Department of Correction. The state expanded tablet use in part because, as of 2023, more than half of incarcerated people were on waitlists for classes.
“We celebrate the expansion of educational access in many forms — and we don’t want to replace what we know is the most potent form of personally transformative education, which is in-person learning,” said Mneesha Gellman, director of the Emerson Prison Initiative at Emerson College. Dave Rini, executive director of Prisoners’ Legal Services of Massachusetts, said tablets have their limitations. “They just don’t do all the things that in-person programming does, including some emotional and socializing things, but also some real hard, crunchy things like making sure folks can get certain types of job training,” Rini said.
4. Yesterday marked 13 years since the Boston Marathon bombing, which killed three people: Krystle Campbell, 29; Lingzi Lu, 23; and Martin Richard, 8. Families of victims and survivors gathered at the Marathon’s finish line on Boylston Street to lay wreaths.
Elena Castellini is running her first Boston Marathon on Monday, raising money for the One World Strong Foundation, created by Dave Fortier after he was injured in the 2013 bombing. “It’s important to acknowledge its history and what it’s been through, but also understand why it’s the way it is today,” Castellini said. “I think during the race, I want to acknowledge what happened and also hold these people in my mind and my heart while I’m running because it is also for them.”
The Long Run: What happens to old running shoes?
Shoes don’t last forever. Rubber soles wear down, stitched nylon mesh frays, laces grow dingy after miles outdoors. Most running shoes begin their lives as fossil fuels — and end them in trash cans and landfills.
Yuly Fuentes-Medel, founder and executive director of The Footwear Collective, said she’s part of a group working to extend the life of those materials. While some consumers are interested in buying shoes that are made in more environmentally-friendly ways, she said making shoes more sustainable will involve changing the systems around how we make, use and discard them.
“I don’t think we need to think about the green shoe,” Fuentes-Medel told GBH’s Boston Public Radio. “I think we need to think about the system that will allow us to have that sustainability model.”
There are no easy solutions at this point, but here’s where the answers might come from in the future, she said.
Shoes are complicated to recycle in part because they are made from so many materials. “They have an average of 36 parts, they use up to eight materials. So the science comes into play really strongly here. We need to know materials, separation, and we need to know how we will distribute all of this,” Fuentes-Medel said. “Each shoe will have a different pathway.”
Materials innovation is part of the answer: Fuentes-Medel imagines a future where less-durable shoes, like flip-flops, are made from materials that can be composted after use. For running shoes, manufacturers must balance performance and durability — while also planning for what happens to the shoe after it’s no longer on the running path, she said.
There’s also something runners can do right now. If you have shoes that you no longer wear but that still have life left in them, you can sell or donate them, so someone else can keep using them. Fuentes-Medel said her team is developing an app that will allow people to upload photos of their shoes and receive suggestions for what to do with them next. You can hear her full conversation with Boston Public Radio’s Jim Braude and Margery Eagan here.
Dig deeper:
-2026 Boston Marathon: What to know and how to watch
-This priest prays with runners headed to the Boston Marathon starting line
-Women were once banned from the Boston Marathon. Bobbi Gibb ran anyway.
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