Edward France
Profile of an Activist
A person who wants to live without waste, cars, junk food, and pesticides has a lot to get away from in this world. But during the four years that Edward France has lived in the small beach-town of Isla Vista, he has become deeply involved with the community and the local sustainability movement — and when the UC Santa Barbara senior graduates in March, he's not going anywhere.
"We have a really vibrant community, and I'm glad to call it home," Edward told me recently over the phone. "But as far as being a sustainable community, it needs a lot of work."
And the 23-year-old already does his share of it. He works as a recycling coordinator for the City of Santa Barbara, volunteers with the UCSB Environmental Affairs Board, helps manage the University's community gardens, and joins the occasional critical mass bike ride through the streets of Isla Vista, promoting what he considers "the symbol of sustainable society."
"The bicycle," according to Edward, "improves the quality of life in a way that's totally sustainable, and we're lucky to live in one of the few places where a person can get by easily without a car." Edward lives by his word, avoiding automobiles when he can, and pedaling fifteen miles in an average day despite his full schedule.
Responsible waste management is one of the major community issues that Edward is concerned with — and he's particularly interested in the science and societal benefits of composting. He keeps five pounds of red earthworms, creatures that devour and break down all the organic waste produced by the residents of his apartment complex, plus five gallons of coffee grounds per week donated by Java Jones coffee house.
But Edward wants to take the project up a notch. Working with the Associated Students Recycling Program and the Environmental Affairs Board he hopes he can acquire funding to implement a community composting program involving perhaps a half ton of worms and, ideally, every bit of organic waste produced by the Isla Vista community.
Edward has his personal agenda, too. For the past six months he has been subsisting on what he calls The Zero-Waste Diet: "Basically, you cook most of your own food, get package-free produce, only buy packaging that's recyclable, and compost the rest."
When he described it to me, the thought struck me that if everyone had just half the gumption of Edward France, the global crisis of landfill overflow would virtually disappear.
"With little effort," he told me, "I can produce about one-thirtieth the waste that I once created."
Many environmentalists, though, tend to overlook such simple remedies for the Earth's ailments. They focus on the big issues — protesting the World Trade conventions, donating to obscure charities — and all the while forget about the communities they call home. And the key to promoting change, says Edward, is working on a local level.
"You've got to focus on the rocks that you can move," he says, "not the boulders that you can't."